'Our Constitution Was Made Only for a Moral and Religious People:' Part One

posted by Mark Lewis at Townhall 

“Our Constitution was made only for moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”—John Adams 

I believe I have demonstrated in many articles that Leftists hate God and religion more than anything else because they cannot allow the slaves in their Marxist system to have any higher allegiance than their totalitarian government masters.  It is also obvious, however, that Leftists loathe history almost as much as they do God and religion because true history (especially American history) is as devastating to their cause as God is.  But then, their god, Marx, said, “Keep people from their history and they are easily controlled.”  The Democrat Party and their adherents are doing everything possible to accomplish just that.

Recently, I referred the Adams quote at the beginning of this column to a Leftist.  His response was, “Conservatives have always taken that quote out of context.”  No, conservatives have not done so, the quote means exactly what Mr. Adams said, as I shall prove in this series.  But this is typical Leftist historical revisionism.  While America’s Founders certainly did not establish a theocracy, from that fact Leftists draw the utterly erroneous conclusion that our Founders meant that religion should have absolutely no influence except in private affairs—and even then, should be regulated by the government, a la China.  Letting religion (God) influence policy is anathema to these people.  But this Leftist ideological canard would, frankly, be totally shocking to our Founders.  They did not establish a theocracy, but neither did they intend that religion would have no part to play in American affairs outside the home.  God is the God of...everything, including government, not just the God of private life.

I also quoted my Leftist correspondent Andrew Jackson’s statement, “That Book (the Bible) is the rock on which our Republic rests.”

“But, but, but,” the Leftist responded, “Jackson was a slave owner.”  This kind of hypocrisy and illogical argumentation is typical of Leftists.  In their own eyes, Leftism is the “god” of humanity.  They establish the acceptable (always evolving) moral standard and judge everyone, including previous generations, by it.  They never try to put history into its context; they always judge others, even in history, by their current, modern, continually changing Leftist standard.  That’s why they can condemn anybody they don’t agree with.  If you don’t measure up to THEIR canon of behavior, you are a horrible human being, a Nazi or racist or “white supremacist”—often worth disposing of entirely, thank you, Chairman Mao and General Secretary Stalin.

But the hypocrisy here is clearly manifest.  People who murder unborn babies, mutilate children, allow near-mass murder in the streets of cities they govern, and destroy countless lives through lying, unscientific transgender dogma, have absolutely no right to judge anyone else about anything.  EXCEPT—those things are part of the current, ever-changing Leftist “morality,” thus not to be condemned.  But, the problem is, IF morality is, as they insist, “ever-changing,” how can they condemn slaveholders for submitting to the “ever-changing” morality of their own time?  Hypocrisy, thy name is Leftist.

Unfortunately for Leftists, Jackson’s quote is the exact truth.  Nearly everybody in early America believed that the Bible was the foundation of American society.  “But, Jackson was a slave owner!”  This brings us to another absolute of Leftist historical revisionism and ideological hypocrisy:  find a flaw, or an imperfect motive, in the messenger, and that immediately frees us from having to believe or submit to any truth he/she teaches.  Because Jackson was a “slave owner,” that automatically means we don’t have to believe anything he says.  Donald Trump is a terrible person who writes mean tweets, so we shouldn’t listen to anything he says.  That standard, of course, doesn’t apply to Democrats.  Uh, modern-day Democrats, not Jacksonian Democrats.

However, truth is truth is truth, regardless of who speaks it.  We are responsible for believing and obeying the truth, even if the devil teaches it.  None of us (especially Leftists) are pure, including the men who founded our country.  But the impurity of life or motive doesn’t change the truth, as much as Leftists wish it did.  “The truth is incontrovertible.  Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is” (Winston Churchill).  Incidentally, quotes about the influence of the Bible and Judeo-Christian morality on America by earlier generations of great Americans could be multiplied exponentially.  But Leftists can’t have that.  They want to morph American history into opposition to Christianity so that they can create the godless, totalitarian government THEY want.  And make you the new Democratic Party slaves.

Leftist hypocrisy is everywhere.  Another example:  they need to get guns out of the 

hands of the murdering criminals they’ve created in cities they govern before they start trying to take them away from innocent Americans who have never hurt anybody with their firearms.  But again, that isn’t what this is all about.  It is totally about absolute power and controlling other people, the cardinal element of Leftist ideology.  Power, not freedom, is their mantra.  And they won’t take guns away from monsters because they need societal chaos.  The more chaos there is in a society, the more need there is (they believe) for the government to step in and “control” that society.  In other words, more power for the government (i.e., them).  A responsible, moral, self-controlled, virtuous person is the LAST thing the Left wants because people like that don’t need government!  The Leftist wants more murder in American streets increased moral perversity and unrestrained hedonism.  Such things are the very source and foundation of their grasping for power.

This brings me back to John Adams and his quote at the beginning of this essay, and why the Left hates him so much and must lie about his statement.  More on what Adams actually meant in my second article in this series.

"Final Warning: America's Last Chance Before Collapse" | Victor Davis Ha...

X22, And we Know, and more- April 14

 

When It Comes To Immigration, Misplaced Compassion Will Destroy America

posted by Vince Coyner at American Thinker 

At her bicentennial, most Americans believed America to be a beacon of light to the world, with legal immigrants drawn by hopes of opportunity, building something and becoming an American success story. America and everything she stood for were things of value and unique, and those who came counted themselves as fortunate. As we approach her semi-quincentennial, things are different.

Today, large swaths of Democrats disparage America as illegitimate in one breath while, in the next, saying that we should allow in every person who wants to walk across the border and suckle at the public teat.  After all, “Columbus was an immigrant.”

America is indeed a land of immigrants, as we’re constantly told. Actually, every place is a land of immigrants, for immigration is a hallmark of human history.

Wherever humanity originated, at some point, members of the species immigrated everywhere else. It’s almost never a simple process. Sometimes, it’s because people were chased from their homelands, like the Vandals who were chased by the Huns from eastern Europe into the Roman Empire, eventually settling in Gaul, then Iberia and, finally, North Africa. Other times, it’s because of people who seek to expand their territory through conquest, as happened with the various Muslim caliphates that emerged from Mecca and Medina, whose desire to encircle the Mediterranean was only stopped by Charles Martel in Tours in 732 and by John III Sobieski in Vienna in 1683.

History is full of examples of people immigrating from one place to another. We often think of the earliest people moving into an area that was previously uninhabited. That may possibly be true of North and South America, but for the most part, it’s not true. When the earliest humans immigrated out of Africa and into Europe, Asia, and Oceania, they encountered our cousins, the Neanderthals, and after 100 centuries of war, eventually eradicated them.

All of this is to say that immigration is nothing new in human history. And it’s not in American history either. Pre-Columbian people in what’s now North America came across the Bering Straits at the end of the Ice Age and then, even in that large land, jostled with each other over territory.

The modern United States was built by immigrants from Europe from a land that was extraordinarily sparsely populated when they arrived. It’s estimated that there were 4.5 million inhabitants north of the Rio Grande in 1492, or about one-half a person per square mile. That compares to approximately 32 in Mexico at the time, 33 in Spain, 60 in France and 103 in India, the world’s densest nation at the time. Today America stands at approximately 100 people per square mile.

From its beginning, the land that became America experienced a series of waves of immigration, which included approximately 86 million people through 2019, a number that has increased to approximately 100 million over the last 5 years. Although Donald Trump stemmed the tide somewhat, Joe Biden has opened up the floodgates with more than 10 million illegal immigrants pouring over our now-nonexistent border since his installation. That’s fully 3% of the US population. As significant numbers of those people are heading to New York, California, and other blue states, which roll out the red carpet and give them free money, the Democrats are grateful because this swelling population helps their congressional numbers.

This is simply not sustainable. Particularly when the overwhelming majority of the people coming across the border are from countries that don’t share our values and have little experience with the freedoms that helped create history’s greatest nation and economy.

Across the country, we’re seeing sanctuary states and cities being overwhelmed by the events they supported in the first place. Citizens, veterans, children, and more are being displaced to make room for illegals, with taxpayers picking up the tab. Virtually every aspect of public services is being overwhelmed, from shelters to schools to hospitals to police.

The good thing is, Donald Trump has promised that on Day One, he will start the largest domestic deportation operation in American history. That, combined with a wall the likes of which we’ve never seen, is a great start.

But there’s a problem, and Jesse Kelly hit it right on the head…

Kelly is right. America is simply too soft to do what’s necessary to deal with this disaster.

Americans are largely a compassionate people. The LBGTQXYZ travesty we’re experiencing today is, at its core, the result of Americans reacting to gay partners not being able to visit dying lovers in hospitals during the AIDS epidemic because they didn’t have rights and families of the dying kept them out of the hospital rooms.

Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of babies are aborted annually because Americans are angered at hearing that a victim of rape or the mother of a severely handicapped fetus was forced to give birth rather than get an abortion.

In wide swaths of the country, policing and justice have been eviscerated because too many Americans believe that blacks are incapable of overcoming slavery that ended a century and a half ago or discrimination that was outlawed back in the 1960s.

Americans are indeed a compassionate people, but sometimes compassion can get you killed. Compassion has a role to play in a moral civilization, but when it becomes the driving force to the exclusion of rational thought, it ceases to be a virtue. (See Europe, which, since 2015, at Angela Merkel’s direction during the war in Syria, imported tens of millions of military-aged men from Africa and the Middle East who are bringing war to the streets, along with the problem that many of them despise Western culture and want Sharia law in Europe.) You cannot run a country based on teary anecdotes. They make for great media and heartfelt stories, but they make for terrible policy.

If Donald Trump is going to fix this situation, he must be willing to endure the unprecedented level of vitriol that will be thrown at him. AOC crying at the side of cages will be child’s play compared to what the media will do with images of little Pedro and his pregnant mommy being pulled from the taxpayer-provided hotel room and loaded up into a DHS van. Trump must be willing to endure stories about the heartbreaking lives that face deportees back in Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela, and the rest of the countries from whence they came with him playing the role of Hitler.

At the end of the day, if Donald Trump is going to lead the nation out of the morass that Democrats and the swamp have led us into, he must be willing to be vilified, cursed, defamed, libeled, reviled and basically all of the other things he has been exposed to over the last eight years, on steroids.

Trump wasn’t willing to endure that abuse last time and allowed random judges to throw roadblocks all along the way. As a result, his wall was never finished, and now there are 10 million new illegals in America. As the country approaches her 250th birthday, if Donald Trump is going to be the leader Americans need right now, he’s going to have to be a lot more George Patton and a lot less Mark Milley.

Migrants Feel the Pain of Biden’s Virtue

For women and children, the road to hell 

is paved with Democrats’ good intentions.

by J. Peder Zane for American Greatness

The party’s beliefs about the right thing to do regarding the border are the main contributors to an explosion of rape, human trafficking, prostitution, and child labor.

As James Varney recently reported for RealClearInvestigations, much of this human tragedy can be traced to the scores of executive orders and other new policies advanced by the Biden administration to encourage millions of migrants from around the world to come to America.

The carnage begins south of the border, where women and children heading north are victimized by predators. The New York Times reported last week that “Assault, robbery and rape have long been a grim risk of migrant journeys around the globe. But aid groups working in the Darién Gap [a jungle in Panama that links South America to Central America] say that in the past six months, they have documented an extraordinary spike in attacks, with patterns and frequencies rarely seen outside of war zones … Long-established aid groups, including Doctors Without Borders and UNICEF, with experience working in conflicts, say the attacks are organized and exceptionally cruel. Perpetrators beat victims and take food, even baby formula, leaving people battered and starving in the forest. And the assaults often involve cases in which dozens of women are violated in a single event.”

It is impossible to say how deeply such trauma will scar these victims. But that is only the beginning of the nightmare for many. To get to the United States, many migrants rack up debts with cartels and coyotes who provide passage. Repayment can require especially degrading forms of modern slavery. Varney reported: “A 2023 report by the conservative Heritage Foundation found arrests for human trafficking rose by 50% and convictions for the crime by 80% in the federal [Fiscal Year] FY2022. Of those trafficked, 72% were immigrants, most here illegally, the report concluded … The impacts are seen across the United States. The New York Post reports that a street in Corona, Queens [has turned] “into the city’s boldest open-air market for sex – one so popular with pervs that it’s advertised on YouTube. As police enforcement wanes and immigration surges nearly a dozen brothels have [also] set up shop along Roosevelt Avenue near Junction Boulevard.’”

Because these crimes are committed in the shadows and the federal government intentionally does not keep and/or share much reliable information about migrants, it is hard to know the extent of such suffering. The fate of the estimated half a million unaccompanied minors who crossed the border since Biden was elected is largely unknown, though it was reported last year that the government had completely lost track of 85,000 of them.

The Labor Department reported last year that illegal child labor cases rose by 44% between 2021 and 2022. The New York Times detailed the problem in an article headlined: “Alone and Exploited, Migrant Children Work Brutal Jobs Across the U.S.: Arriving in record numbers, they’re ending up in dangerous jobs that violate child labor laws – including in factories that make products for well-known brands like Cheetos and Fruit of the Loom.”

Muckraker.com founder Anthony Rubin says children climbing roofs during the day or manning factory assembly lines at night may be the lucky ones. He told Fox News that so many migrant children have arrived so quickly that the government is placing some in foster homes that “are dealing with serious sexual assault allegations …  A lot of times they [the children] are dropped into the hands of traffickers, sex traffickers, and much worse. And they’re driven across the country and dropped off at these homes and 85,000 have gone missing, and that’s what’s going on.”

All of this was predictable. From day one, the Biden administration was intent on demonstrating its virtue in comparison to Donald Trump. It sent the signal, come one, come all, without any plan for how to handle the inevitable influx. Is anyone surprised that criminal gangs are exploiting the migrants who answered the call or that women and children – many without much education or skills, saddled with debts to smugglers and others – would make money however they could through choice or force?

While the migrants themselves have ultimate responsibility for their actions, the lure of life in America, no questions asked, is proving hard to resist for people stuck in grinding poverty.

Regardless, the alleged cruelty of Trump’s policies is child’s play compared to what is happening across the country. Unconscionable, immoral, and depraved only begin to suggest the mindset that has enabled this suffering and allows it to deepen without remedy – or even comment.

Republicans have not demonstrated much care or compassion, either – using the migrant crisis to score political points while ignoring the human toll. But Biden is our president and his policies are a stain on this nation’s soul.

Like many Democrats, he believes it is enough to have the right feelings, never mind the consequences. If welfare programs destroy families, aggressive racial policies fail to lift up the poorest people of color, and woke ideology contributes to a breakdown of public education, well, ain’t that a shame.

Intentions must be measured by their results. Biden’s immigration policies have unleashed a humanitarian crisis that civilized people cannot ignore.

CBP Releases Shocking New Data On the Amount of Illegals Flown Into the U.S. Under Biden

Sarah Arnold reporting for Townhall 

Customs Border and Protection released shocking new numbers on the staggering amount of illegal immigrants who have been flown into the United States under the Biden Administration. 

According to the data, the Biden Administration has flown 404,000 illegal immigrants into the country thanks to the Humanitarian Parole Program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans. The program grants illegal immigrants two years of humanitarian parole in the U.S., allowing them to work American jobs. 

It is worth noting that the 404, 000 illegal immigrants do not include those entering the U.S. through its southern border. 

Fox News reporter Bill Melugin broke down the number of illegal aliens by country who are residing in the U.S.: 

84,000 Cubans 

154,000 Haitians 

69,000 Nicaraguans 

95,000 Venezuelans 

Critics say this mass parole program is essentially de facto amnesty, as ICE does not have the manpower or resources to go out and deport them if they stay past their parole grant, and they are not a priority for removal under the current DHS guidelines for ICE. 

Some countries, like Venezuela, aren’t cooperative with deportations and won’t take their own citizens back, yet the Biden admin continues to import Venezuelans into the U.S. by the tens of thousands via this program. Via @BillMelugin_

In 2023, the Biden Administration announced its goal to provide “safe and orderly pathways to the United States” for 30,000 illegal nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

The Biden Department of Homeland Security said it would grant parole to an illegal immigrant if there is an “urgent humanitarian or significant public benefit reasons” to do so. 

Last month, I reported that the Biden DHS has only deported 0.25 percent of Venezuelans who have illegally entered the country. During the Fiscal Year 2023, 335,000 illegal Venezuelan immigrants crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, with only 834 having been deported. 

RFK Jr. Pretends Not to Know Intel Agency FISA Game

posted by Sundance at Conservative Treehouse 

There are three basic options for this response from RFK Jr.  (1) He really is not that intelligent, and doesn’t know of what he speaks. (2) He knows the full background context and is pretending not to know. (3)  He’s working on behalf of an alternate interest.

The reason is simple, the last reauthorization of the FISA-702 process took place in December/January of 2017/2018.  At the time of the issue you might remember the intense debate that encompassed what was called the “Nunes memo”.

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) Chairman Devin Nunes had written a memo outlining the contents of the FISA application used against Carter Page.  The Intelligence Community wanted to keep the information about the FISA application hidden from public review.

Devin Nunes’ memo was designated “Top Secret Compartmented Intelligence” (TSCI) by those who wanted it to remain hidden.  Nunes was asking President Trump to use his declassification authority to remove the classified status, so that the American people could read how the DOJ, CIA, FBI and ODNI constructed a fraudulent FISA application to conduct political surveillance on Donald Trump.

Keep in mind, on March 17, 2017, SSCI Vice Chairman Mark Warner leaked a full and unredacted copy of the FISA application to the media. Three days later, on March 20th, FBI Director James Comey admitted during public testimony that Donald Trump was the subject of an active counterintelligence investigation.

Warner and Comey were running an operation using DC media to get the momentum they needed for a Special Counsel investigation.  The SC investigation was needed to cover up the activity of the DOJ, FBI, NSD, ODNI and SSCI during the 2016 election cycle.  Every element of the intelligence apparatus in DC was opposed to the efforts of Nunes and Trump to expose the unlawful targeting effort.

To get the Nunes memo declassified, both President Trump and Devin Nunes used the leverage of FISA-702 reauthorization to force the IC to declassify it.   If the ODNI, FBI and DOJ did not agree to declassify the memo and make it public, then 702 would be allowed to expire, and the IC would lose their currency.

It worked.  The DNI, FBI and DOJ acquiesced to the memo declassification.  Then they worked diligently to undermine it.

That’s how they roll.

The FBI is to America in 2024, what the Soviet FSB was to Russia in 1984. A fully weaponized government inversion is underway within the United States.

Either Robert Kennedy Jr. is clueless (doubtful), or he’s pretending not to know what DC does with their power (likely).

Yes, there is a lot of irony within his pretenses. Then again, he’s a Kennedy.

French Guiana: A Puma takes off to rescue twins born on a canoe

 Last night, a Puma crew from transport squadron 68 “Indies-Guyana” evacuated twins born prematurely to Cayenne hospital on a canoe.   

On Tuesday, 9 April 2024, as torrential rains fell on French Guiana, a Puma helicopter from the 68 "Indies-Guyana" transport squad was activated on a medical evacuation. The mission is to repatriate to the hospital in Cayenne two infants born prematurely on a canoe on the outskirts of Grand Santi (western Guiana). In this remote area, only the Puma could lead the mission on time.  

The helicopter left airbase 367 at 0015 hours, after the aircraft had been implemented by the mechanics. On board, two pilots, two flight mechanics and three SAMU staff with a large incubator. In the dark night, the crew crisscrossed the air with night vision binoculars (JVN). “We are in the middle of the rainy season in French Guiana. At night, it is more complicated to evolve in the clouds that can potentially become dangerous,” explains Captain Hélène, the shipowner on the mission. Meanwhile in the hold, things are activated: preparation of the incubator, definition of the medical stresses related to altitude, setting the temperature of the bunker ... At 01:20, the Puma arrives on the area. Soon, SAMU doctors and nurses joined the victims, in a nearby clinic, first to stabilize their condition, then then to be able to have them boarded to transfer them to the hospital in Cayenne. “The urgency is proven but the newborns are stabilized. The challenge now is to get to the hospital quickly to provide optimal care,” says the SAMU doctor on board. Finally, the Puma dropped the newborns and their mother at 04:15 a.m. on the heliport of the Cayenne hospital.  

“Rescue is one of our main motivations when we choose to play on a helicopter in the Air and Space Army. It is a meaningful mission,” say the four crew members. In 2023, Transport Squadron 68 (Puma, Fennec, Casa) accounted for nearly 80 medical evacuations.   

https://www.defense.gouv.fr/air/actualites/guyane-puma-decolle-secourir-jumeaux-nes-pirogue

Hunter Biden's Felony Gun Case Moves Ahead in Federal Court

Sara Higdon reporting for The Post Millennial 

On Friday, US District Judge Maryellen Noreika denied Hunter Biden's attempt to have gun charges dismissed after his attorneys argued the case was politically motivated. 

According to the Daily Mail, the president's son attempted to argue that he did not break the law in 2018 when he allegedly lied about being on drugs when he filled out paperwork to purchase a firearm in 2018. 

While Biden admitted to being addicted to crack cocaine during that period, his attorneys argued that the prosecutor was pressured into indicting the president's son instead of moving forward with a plea deal that would have kept him out of prison. 

In the ruling, Judge Noreika said the accusation of political pressure was "all speculation.”  

“The pressure campaign from Congressional Republicans may have occurred around the time that Special Counsel decided to move forward with indictment instead of pretrial diversion, but the Court has been given nothing credible to suggest that the conduct of those lawmakers (or anyone else) had any impact on Special Counsel." 

Biden faces up to 25 years in prison if he is found guilty on charges of making false statements while purchasing a firearm, making false statements regarding information kept by federal firearms licensed dealers, and unlawful possession of a firearm. 

He was originally set to plead guilty to tax charges last June, with the gun charges being dismissed as part of it. The deal was struck down by Noreika when it was discovered that it also included immunity regarding potential charges of not having filed as a foreign agent during overseas business deals. 

The president's son then pleaded not guilty to the gun charges, and the case is expected to begin this upcoming June.

Spy Agency Says Red China Interfered In Canada’s Elections To Help Justin Trudeau

CSIS confirmed Red China interfered in Canada’s 2019 and 2021 elections to prevent Justin Trudeau’s opponents from taking power.

Shawn Fleetwood reporting for The Federalist

When Russian President Vladimir Putin was reelected in 2018, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rushed to the nearest microphone to express his worry that foreign actors might disrupt his nation’s future elections.

“We have been very much focused over the past years on strengthening our democratic institutions,” Trudeau said. “We need to make sure that they are kept up to date in holding off foreign meddling and interference.”

The prime minister’s supposed concern about the sanctity of “democratic institutions” isn’t just meaningless because of his use of government powers against Canadian truckers peacefully protesting his authoritarian covid-19 policies. They’re hollow because it’s clear neither Trudeau nor his government did much to protect Canada’s electoral system from foreign influence in the years that followed.

Chinese Election Interference

On Monday, Ottawa’s lead spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), confirmed that Communist China interfered in Canada’s 2019 and 2021 federal elections. These efforts “focused primarily on supporting those viewed to be either ‘pro-PRC’ or ‘neutral’ on issues of interest to the [Chinese] government,” a slide shown to Canadian officials reads, according to Reuters.

According to The Toronto Star, the briefing provided to the Foreign Interference Commission further revealed that, during the 2021 contest, the CCP specifically aimed “to deter Canadians, especially those ‘of Chinese heritage,’ from backing the Conservative party, then-leader Erin O’Toole, and B.C. Conservative candidate Kenny Chiu.” Conservative candidates took a hardline approach to China during the 2021 campaign, often highlighting the CCP’s brutal treatment of Uyghurs and criticizing Huawei, a Chinese tech giant suspected of facilitating spyware for Beijing.

Chiu ultimately lost his 2021 election bid, while Trudeau’s Liberal Party won both the 2019 and 2021 elections.

“The timing of these efforts to align with Conservative polling improvement; the similarities in language with articles published by PRC state media; and the partnership agreements between these Canada-based outlets and PRC entities; all suggest that these efforts were orchestrated or directed by the PRC,” the CSIS assessment reads, according to the Star.

O’Toole estimated China’s interference cost Conservatives “up to nine seats but added it had not changed the course of the election,” according to Reuters.

Reports of China’s election interference began surfacing early last year, when CSIS information detailing the CCP’s operations were leaked to The Globe and Mail. Trudeau initially rejected Conservatives’ call for an investigation into the allegations, at one point saying: “Canadians can be reassured that our election integrity held” in 2019 and 2021. The prime minister later acquiesced, appointing an investigator to look into the matter in March 2023.

During Monday’s briefing, CSIS called on Trudeau’s government to take more effective action to address future election interference attempts, with the agency noting there are “few legal or political consequences” for foreign actors infringing on Canada’s democratic process.

Trudeau Takes the Stand

Following the Foreign Interference Commission’s Monday briefing on CSIS’s findings, Trudeau testified before the body on Wednesday to disclose what he knew about China’s actions and when he learned it.

At the beginning of his remarks, the Liberal prime minister took a pot-shot at the government run by his predecessor, Conservative PM Stephen Harper, which he contended did not conduct enough “oversight” into Canada’s “national security universe.” He also hyped his government’s approach to national security issues and claimed his agencies are “compliant with Canadian values, rules, and the Charter, and … doing everything necessary to keep Canadians safe.”

During the hearing, the prime minister was asked when he learned about Chinese interference operations inside Canada, specifically with respect to the 2019 nomination of Liberal MP Han Dong. A CSIS memo disclosed this week alleged the Chinese Consulate in Toronto transported Mandarin-speaking Chinese students to Dong’s district to help him secure the nomination.

The memo noted “[s]ome intelligence reporting indicated students were provided with falsified documents to allow them to vote despite not being residents of Don Valley North” and that the records “were provided by individuals associated with a known proxy agent.”

Dong told the commission on Tuesday, as Rebel News described, that he “frequently spoke” with then-Counsel General Han Tao of China’s Toronto consulate. He also told the commission he hasn’t “seen any evidence” of PRC interference in Canadian elections and, “to the best of [his] knowledge,” does not believe there was any such interference regarding his 2019 nomination.

Canada’s elections commissioner is currently investigating Dong’s nomination, according to the outlet.

During his testimony, Trudeau claimed he was initially informed about the situation by his adviser Jeremy Broadhurst in September 2019 — a month before that year’s federal elections — and that “CSIS didn’t have any conclusions to share at that point” about whether “there was a sense that the actual result of the nomination could have been affected.”

“That wasn’t clear at all,” Trudeau said.

Trudeau further contended he did not believe CSIS’s warnings about Beijing’s Toronto consulate bussing Chinese students did not meet the “threshold” for removing Dong as a Liberal nominee.

“In this case, I didn’t feel that there was sufficient, or sufficiently credible, information that would justify this very significant step, as to remove a candidate in these circumstances,” Trudeau said.

Questionable Remarks

Despite CSIS’s findings, Trudeau seemingly isn’t convinced that China’s 2021 efforts were designed to benefit the Liberal Party.

According to The Epoch Times, the prime minister cast doubt on intelligence suggesting Beijing was attempting to boost his party’s electoral prospects, saying: “While individual officials may well have expressed a preference or another … it would just seem very improbable that the Chinese government itself would have a preference in the election.”

As noted above, these remarks contradict the intelligence provided by CSIS, which highlighted the CCP’s aim to undermine Conservative Party candidates.

Another questionable moment came when Trudeau was describing how he receives intelligence. The Liberal Party leader indicated he “may or may not read” intel briefs provided to him by administration officials, citing his busy work and travel schedule.

“The best way to convey information to me is to receive a direct briefing from my national security adviser and intelligence adviser, who would give me security updates, usually on several topics,” Trudeau said in French, via a translator.