CSIS Director recalled Liberal MP Han Dong intelligence report for 2nd time because of 2023 meeting with Prime Minister Trudeau

David Vigneault will be recalled for examination Friday on his meetings and briefings with Justin Trudeau, Commissioner Hogue rules Tuesday

Two confidential CSIS witnesses have testified that CSIS director David Vigneault took the rare step of changing a sensitive intelligence report on MP Han Dong for the second time in 2023, following a meeting between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Vigneault regarding media leaks about CSIS investigations into suspected Chinese interference in Dong’s 2019 nomination in Toronto.

Following a day of bombshell testimony regarding this and other meetings between Trudeau and Vigneault, Tuesday evening Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue ruled that Vigneault will be recalled Friday for re-examination on his private discussions with the Prime Minister and Trudeau’s top aides.

Last week the Commission heard that Vigneault had recalled the controversial report on Han Dong’s 2019 nomination in Don Valley North a first time in October 2019, shortly after the report was forwarded to senior Trudeau officials including his then-national security advisor [NSIA], Greta Bossenmaier.

“An internal CSIS email sent shortly after the assessment was published [in October 2019] says that [Vigneault] asked for the assessment to be recalled further to a discussion with the NSIA,” the documents say.

In that case Vigneault and CSIS watered down the assessment that an unidentified “politically-connected Canadian” had interfered in the 2019 election in Dong’s riding.

“I would not and did not tell another intelligence agency to change their report,” Bossenmaier told the Commission on Monday, while Vigneault testified he couldn’t remember why he agreed to revise the October 2019 Han Dong intelligence.

Other senior Trudeau security officials examined Monday confirmed they were informed of CSIS allegations days before the October 21, 2019 federal vote that Chinese officials had covertly transferred about $250,000 into a pro-Beijing network involving numerous 2019 election candidates, and that CSIS intelligence on Han Dong’s riding included funding allegations that were referred to Elections Canada.

On Tuesday Commission lawyers came back to CSIS’s handling of the Han Dong intelligence reports first escalated to senior Trudeau security officials on October 1, 2019.

In his testimony last week, Dong acknowledged involvement in securing volunteers for his 2019 campaign among Chinese high school students that were bussed in to his nomination meeting, but Dong said he had no idea who paid for or arranged the bus.

The Commission heard Tuesday that Prime Minister Trudeau was briefed by his senior aide Jeremy Broadhurst in 2019 prior to the election — after CSIS provided Broadhurst classified information — on CSIS’s allegations regarding irregularities in the Dong nomination including Chinese students bussed into Dong’s riding.

A sanitized record of the information provided to Broadhurst on September 28, 2019, said allegations included: “Buses being used to bring international students to the nomination process, in support of Han Dong, at the direction of PRC officials in Canada.”

“I determined that this was something that did need to be brought to the attention of the Prime Minister, uh, and I looked for the earliest opportunity,” Broadhurst said.

Commission lawyers on Tuesday also tabled a sanitized version of their classified interrogation earlier this year of two unidentified CSIS witnesses, who told Commission lawyers about “an internal CSIS email exchange following a meeting between the CSIS director [Vigneault] and staff from the Prime Minister's Office, sometime after 2022.”

“In this exchange, CSIS employees discussed changes to an assessment concerning possible PRC interference in the nomination race for the LPC candidate in the Don Valley North riding,” the Commission document called “Witness35” that was tabled on Tuesday says.

The document continues:

“Witness 3 explained that the purpose of the meeting was to discuss, after the media leaks, all intelligence regarding Han Dong. Witness 3 stated that the corrections in the assessment identified in the email exchange were based on that meeting.”

And the other CSIS witness pointed at Jody Thomas, the national security advisor for Trudeau in 2023 at the time of the meeting between Trudeau and Vigneault.

Thomas has since retired.

"Witness 2 explained that they believed a report concerning the Don Valley North nomination contest was recalled at the request of the National Security and Intelligence Advisor [in 2023]," the Witness35 document says. "Witness 2 noted that it was not common for the NSIA to request the recall of a report."

In evidence that appears to underline how thoroughly the finalized October 2019 Han Dong report was vetted within CSIS — before it was subsequently changed twice in three years by Vigneault — the Witness35 document added: “Witness 3 observed that upper management or senior CSIS executives would sometimes need to approve the dissemination of products based on particularly sensitive intelligence.”

Regarding these new allegations, on Tuesday morning a Conservative Party lawyer questioned Trudeau’s top bureaucrat at the time of the 2023 Trudeau-Vigneault meeting, former Privy Council Office clerk Janice Charette.

Charette confirmed she was in the Han Dong intel meeting with Trudeau and Vigneault and former national security advisor Jody Thomas. Charette has since retired.

“We have evidence from the CSIS witnesses that sometime after 2022 there was a meeting between a CSIS agent and Prime Minister’s Office staff, the Prime Minister, the Clerk of the Privy Council [Charette], the NSIA [Thomas] and the CSIS director [Vigneault],” the Conservative Party lawyer said.

“And that the purpose of the meeting, was to discuss after the media leaks, all intelligence regarding Han Dong. I believe you may have mentioned this or referenced this Ms. Charette in your evidence just now, and that a result of that meeting, was CSIS actually recalled or corrected CSIS’s assessment of the PRC Foreign Interference assessment.” 

“Are you able to disclose what advice you gave the Prime Minister or the Prime Minister’s Office as a result of this meeting?” the Conservative Party lawyer asked.