Conservative Party brass spun into damage control mode yesterday as new documents reveal a mounting log of interviews, e-mails and invoices to support allegations the party overspent by more than $1 million in the last federal campaign through a so-called "in-and-out scheme."

Documents used to execute an RCMP-aided search warrant at Tory party headquarters last week were unsealed by a Toronto court Friday night but weren't publicly released until today.

In a bid to get ahead of the curve, Conservative officials released some of the documents to some media outlets, including the 68-page affidavit from Ronald Lamothe, an assistant chief investigator in the Office of the Commissioner of Canada Elections.

In the statement, Lamothe said he has "reasonable grounds" to believe the party exceeded its election spending limit and candidates "improperly" claimed expenses in their electoral campaign returns. The document contains summaries of interviews from several candidates and official agents and attaches evidence such as e-mails and invoices.

"I have noted a consistent pattern created by the Conservative Party of Canada or the Conservative Fund Canada to deposit funds into the accounts of various campaigns, only to have the same or similar amounts transferred, always under the control of the Conservative Party or the Conservative Fund Canada, back to the Conservative Fund Canada, the chief agent of the Conservative Party of Canada," he stated.

Lamothe had sought to have the information used to obtain the search warrant remain sealed because he believed making it public would compromise the ongoing investigation.

'CHILLING EFFECT'

"The outline of the investigation and the evidence obtained to date would be known to potential interviewees," he wrote. "I believe such knowledge would tend to have a chilling effect on co-operation of potential witnesses and could allow interviewees to tailor their evidence to achieve a desired result."

A Conservative Party official insisted everything was legal and above board, and called the police search "retaliation" for the civil suit launched by the party against Elections Canada.

"The facts remain unchanged. We are engaged in a legal dispute on what constitutes a national campaign and a local campaign. Period," he said.

But Liberal MP Ralph Goodale said the Conservatives are in damage control.

"The arguments they're trotting out are the same ones they've tried to bluff people with for the last year, and frankly those dogs just don't hunt," he said.

"This is not a trivial, little administrative matter as much as the Conservatives would like to minimize it and sweep it under the rug. It's very serious stuff."

Lamothe's investigation stems from a May 17, 2007 referral from the political financing, audit and corporate services section of Elections Canada, which asked to probe whether the Conservatives incurred election expenses for media advertising that were claimed by a number of its candidates. The alleged scheme enabled the Conservative Party to spend $1 million over the limit and allowed about 67 candidates to increase their reported election expenses with expenses they didn't incur to claim a rebate they were not entitled to.

The spending cap for the Conservatives in the last election was $18.3 million.