Almost a full year after Sen. Mike Duffy was acquitted on 31 charges of fraud, bribery and breach of trust, the man who paid him $90,000 remains under investigation by the federal ethics watchdog.
The Senate spending scandal dragged to a close Thursday as the upper chamber abandoned plans to sue a group of former senators to recoup questionable travel, office and housing expenses.
When auditor general Michael Ferguson released his scathing report on the Senate expense scandal last year, one of his key recommendations was the creation of an independent oversight body.
After a three-year hiatus from his third-floor office in the Centre Block, Mike Duffy was let back into the Senate on Thursday, with access once again to the full resources of the upper chamber.
The disgraced P.E.I. senator's fraud, breach of trust and bribery trial has been ongoing for a year, and is expected to culminate in a verdict on Thursday.
Duffy says his last months inside the Conservative caucus were a devastating series of betrayals and threats, designed to force him into admitting he had botched his Senate expenses.