OTTAWA — Nigel Wright, Stephen Harper's former chief of staff, says he was trying to quietly do a "good deed" when he gave Mike Duffy $90,000, then privately notified the prime minister's director of issues management.
Wright, a devoutly religious man, is telling court he was following the advice of a Bible passage that counsels "righteousness," but warns against doing it in front of others for the sake of self-aggrandizement.
"This is sort of Matthew 6, right?" he told court, citing Scripture.
"You should do those things quietly, and 'not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.'"
It's the second day on the stand for Wright, who has travelled from London, England, to testify as the Duffy trial's star witness.
Wright says he decided to give Duffy the money after the original plan to see the Conservative party cover the bill — believed initially to be $32,000 — fell through when the cost suddenly soared to more than $90,000.
"I came to that decision, I think, in a day or two after that I understood that the Conservative fund would not pay," Wright said.
Wright said he felt he needed to inform Chris Woodcock, the director of issues management inside the Prime Minister's Office, about where the money actually came from.
"As director of issues management, Chris was responsible for a team that would be involved in preparing responses to questions and inquires we'd receive, mostly from the media," he testified.
"I thought Chris needed to know this piece of information just in case he would approve an answer on something that would be wrong because he didn't know it was fact."
