Ex-PMO staffer Ben Perrin’s emails not deleted, Privy Council Office tells RCMP

OTTAWA – The federal government has notified the RCMP about a cache of emails belonging to Benjamin Perrin, former counsel for the Prime Minister’s Office and a central figure in the Senate spending scandal.

The Privy Council Office has written to investigators to say it was wrong when it originally said Perrin’s emails had been deleted when he left the job in March.

The letter says PCO recently learned the account in question had been frozen as a result of “unrelated litigation.”

The office says it will “immediately turn over these email records” and that it has apologized to both the RCMP and the Prime Minister’s Office.

Perrin’s name appears in RCMP documents released in November containing explosive allegations about a scheme to repay Sen. Mike Duffy’s disallowed housing expenses and whitewash a Senate report into the controversy.

The documents allege senior PMO staffers — including Nigel Wright, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff and the man who paid Duffy’s $90,000 bill — worked with top Tory senators to change the report after unsuccessfully trying to shape an independent audit.