Vincent Rigby saw a lot over his 30-year career in public service, much of it working with some of the most sensitive and secret intelligence issues in Canada.
But for all that experience, the former national security adviser to the prime minister found himself in a state of disbelief in August when he saw the FBI search the home of former U.S. president Donald Trump and leave with boxes of highly sensitive, classified information.
“I was absolutely stunned that based on the media reports that I saw, he had in his possession what are reputed to be very, very sensitive documents and it’s just something that is unheard of,” Rigby said in an interview with The Fifth Estate.
“Just disbelief that somebody could take those out of the White House, stick them, I presume, on a plane or in a truck, drive them down to Florida and then put them … effectively in a basement, it’s just disbelief,” said Rigby, now a visiting professor at the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University in Montreal.
The material has set off a damage assessment by the U.S. intelligence community as it tries to understand what classified information was contained in the documents the former president had in his possession.
But the concern extends beyond just U.S. intelligence. The United States is a member of the Five Eyes, an intelligence-sharing organization that also includes Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
Vincent Rigby, a former national security and intelligence adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, says that because Canada shares so much intelligence with the United States, Canadian agencies should be concerned about the material recovered from the Florida home of former U.S. president Donald Trump. (Steven D’Souza/CBC)
Rigby said any potential security breach for one member has a ripple effect within the entire group and would also reverberate through the halls of the dozen or so agencies that share and collect intelligence in Canada, including the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS), and the Communications Security Establishment (CSE).
“In a worst-case scenario, there’s Canadian intelligence, that’s a direct implication,” said Rigby who played a critical role in Canada’s intelligence community as the national security and intelligence adviser to the prime minister from January 2020 until his retirement in September 2021.
Unprecedented search
On Aug. 8, the FBI took the unprecedented step of searching the home of a former U.S. president. With heavily armed Secret Service agents standing guard outside, teams of FBI agents searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property.
During the August search, the FBI combed through the posh club, which doubles as Trump’s primary residence, recovering 100 documents with classification markings, including 18 marked top secret, 54 marked secret and 31 marked confidential. The documents were found in Trump’s bedroom, an office and a first-floor storage room, according to court filings.
According to an inventory filed as part of a legal battle over the documents recovered, the material found includes some of the highest classification levels of U.S. intelligence, including material that’s highly compartmentalized and only available to a select few.
The FBI says it took about 11,000 documents, including roughly 100 with classification markings found in a storage room and an office, while serving a court-authorized search warrant at the home on Aug. 8. (Getty Images)
The search was part of an investigation by the FBI and the U.S. Justice Department into the storing and mishandling of national defence information and possible obstruction of justice.
The probe was sparked by an almost year-long effort by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to recover presidential records removed by Trump after he left the White House in January 2021.
In January 2022, Trump’s lawyers returned 15 boxes of records. In those boxes, archivists found more than 100 documents with classification markings, comprising more than 700 pages, according to a letter from NARA to Trump’s lawyers.
‘Inappropriate’ to comment, government says
It’s not clear if any intelligence directly related to Canada is among the documents. The Fifth Estate contacted CSIS, Global Affairs, Public Safety Canada and the minister responsible for public safety, Marco Mendicino, for comment.
Instead, The Fifth Estate was sent a response from the Privy Council Office, which reports directly to the Prime Minister’s Office.
“At this stage, it would be inappropriate for the Government of Canada to comment on an ongoing U.S. law-enforcement investigation,” the Privy Council Office said in the statement.
“Should the Government of Canada be made aware of any security breaches, appropriate protocols and procedures are in place to deal with them.”
An aerial view shows former U.S. president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home on on Aug. 15 in Palm Beach, Fla. (Marco Bello/Reuters)
But experts say that because Canada relies so heavily on the U.S. for intelligence, any impact on its ability to collect information would be felt north of the border.
“Knowing the prime minister, he may well have reached out and had some pointed questions, if not directly from him, from a staff in the Prime Minister’s Office: ‘Do we need to be concerned? Are there any issues here? What’s at stake?'” said Rigby, cautioning that he doesn’t know if the prime minister has been briefed.
As national security and intelligence adviser, he was also responsible for co-ordinating the security intelligence community within Canada and liaising with allies, especially the U.S.
Rigby said if he was still in Ottawa in his former job, he’d likely be putting a call into his counterpart, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan, “to say: ‘OK, can you just give us a little bit of insight here as to what are these documents? And should we be concerned from a Canadian perspective?'”
Implications for Canada
The concern isn’t theoretical, in part because what is reportedly in at least some of the documents relates directly to a current national security issue in Canada.
The Washington Post reported that some of the material recovered “described highly sensitive intelligence work aimed at China.”
Chinese interference in Canadian elections and other national security concerns have been top of mind in Ottawa recently. At a meeting of the procedure and house affairs committee earlier this month, Michelle Tessier, deputy director of operations for CSIS, told members of Parliament about their concern about the Chinese Communist Party.
“They are an actor in foreign interference,” Tessier told the committee on Nov. 1, “and we have said that publicly and I can state again that we are concerned about the activities regarding threats against the security of Canada, including foreign interference by the Chinese Communist Party.”
A seven-page inventory filed by the FBI in U.S. federal court in Florida lists the contents of the boxes recovered during the search of Mar-a-Lago in August. (U.S. Department of Justice)
Rigby said the activities China could be involved in range from foreign interference and espionage to disinformation, misinformation, cyberattacks and more.
He said China is also very aggressive in its intelligence collection so it would likely target information in Trump’s possession to help it understand what the U.S. knows about its operations.
“If this intelligence is not stored properly if it’s sitting in a basement room somewhere without being properly locked up, it can potentially be grabbed by foreign intelligence agencies. And it can put not just the U.S. at heightened risk, but the Five Eyes, our allies and Canada included.”
Artur Wilczynski, a former associate deputy chief of signals intelligence at the Communications Security Establishment, says information shared among the Five Eyes, like intelligence on China, is essential for Canadian security interests. Losing access to that would have an effect on the ability to manage risk, he said.
“If some of that information that’s essential to make decisions is no longer available because sources are compromised, then you do not have all the information that you should have in order to make an informed decision,” Wilczynski told The Fifth Estate.
Artur Wilczynski, a former associate deputy chief of signals intelligence at the Communications Security Establishment, says information shared among the Five Eyes, like intelligence on China, is essential for Canadian security interests. (Steven D’Souza/CBC)
A major reason so many in the intelligence community worry that information could be compromised is that it was stored at Trump’s home in Florida, the private club known as Mar-a-Lago.
The FBI expressed concern that the facility lacked a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, also known as an SCIF, a specially designed area to store and view top secret information.
Mar-a-Lago is well-known among intelligence experts for substandard security, which has seen a host of dubious characters gain access over the years, including a woman posing as a wealthy heiress (who had among other documents, a forged Canadian passport) and a Chinese national who was found to have numerous electronic surveillance and computer hacking devices.
How to steal top secret information
A former CIA case officer tells The Fifth Estate how he would go about infiltrating former U.S. president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club to try to gain access to top secret information stored there.
That easy accessibility makes it a prime target for foreign intelligence agencies to try to gain access to the former president and any material he may have in his possession, says Peter Strzok, a former FBI deputy director for counterintelligence.
“I find it hard to believe that certainly when you think about China, when you think about Russia, that they would not have extended extraordinary efforts which continue to this day to get access to Trump,” Strzok told The Fifth Estate.
“Whether that is people close to him, whether that is his electronics, his email, his texts, whether that is the places that he frequents, that he lives, those efforts were significant in all likelihood, and continue to be significant.”
Easy accessibility of Mar-a-Lago makes it a prime target for foreign intelligence agencies to try to gain access to the former president and any material he may have in his possession, Peter Strzok, a former FBI deputy director for counterintelligence, told The Fifth Estate. (Harvey Cashore/CBC)
Bruce Heyman, a former U.S. ambassador to Canada and a vocal Trump critic, was shocked but not surprised when he heard about the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago.
“This is in a resort property in Florida … a place where people go to have weddings and parties, and we have the highest level of security documents sitting around, laying around the house. I mean, this is absolutely appalling.”
Exposing sources
A major concern would be the fallout for human sources — the spies themselves — if the top secret material found in Trump’s possession fell into the hands of adversaries, said Douglas London, a former case officer with the CIA.
London, who also worked in counterterrorism operations, said a damage assessment of the material Trump had would look at whether any sources or methods of collection had been affected.
He said the process can be exhaustive and operations could be stopped if agencies feel like the people risking their lives to gather information were at risk.
Bruce Heyman, a former U.S. ambassador to Canada and a vocal Trump critic, was shocked but not surprised when he heard about the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago. (Steven D’Souza/CBC)
“These are not necessarily mercenary folks, these are people who often refuse money or material compensation because they’re doing it for their children, their future. And those are the people that will pay the dearest consequences if they’re compromised,” London said.
Those consequences, he said, are severe.
“You’re talking about police, state surveillance, states like Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and even some countries that we deal with as partners across the world who are led by autocrats who are rather brutal and tend not just to kill the agent or the source, but to retaliate against their family and their networks and their friends.”
Rigby agrees the risks posed by the documents found at Mar-a-Lago could potentially have life-or-death consequences for those on the front lines of intelligence gathering.
“They could end up in prison for a long time, or in some cases, extreme cases, they are executed. It’s a very dangerous business, a very dangerous business.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — An Alaska man accused of sending graphic threats to injure and kill six Supreme Court justices and some of their family members has been indicted on federal charges, authorities said Thursday.
Panos Anastasiou, 76, is accused of sending more than 465 messages through a public court website, including graphic threats of assassination and torture coupled with racist and homophobic rhetoric.
The indictment does not specify which justices Anastasiou targeted, but Attorney General Merrick Garland said he made the graphic threats as retaliation for decisions he disagreed with.
“Our democracy depends on the ability of public officials to do their jobs without fearing for their lives or the safety of their families,” he said.
Anastasiou has been indicted on 22 counts, including nine counts of making threats against a federal judge and 13 counts of making threats in interstate commerce.
He was released from detention late Thursday by a federal magistrate in Anchorage with a a list of conditions, including that he not directly or indirectly contact any of the six Supreme Court justices he allegedly threatened or any of their family members.
During the hearing that lasted more than hour, Magistrate Kyle Reardon noted some of the messages Anastasiou allegedly sent between March 2023 and mid-July 2024, including calling for the assassination of two of the Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices so the current Democratic president could appoint their successors.
Instead of toning down his rhetoric after receiving a visit from FBI agents last year, Anastasiou increased the frequency of his messages and their vitriolic language, Reardon said.
Gray-haired and shackled at the ankles above his salmon-colored plastic slippers, Anastasiou wore a yellow prison outfit with ACC printed in black on the back, the initials for the Anchorage Correctional Facility, at the hearing. Born in Greece, he moved to Anchorage 67 years ago. Reardon allowed him to contact his elected officials on other matters like global warming, but said the messages must be reviewed by his lawyers.
Defense attorney Jane Imholte noted Anastasiou is a Vietnam veteran who is undergoing treatment for throat cancer and has no financial means other than his Social Security benefits.
She told the judge that Anastaiou, who signed his own name to the emails, worried about his pets while being detained. She said he only wanted to return home to care for his dogs, Freddie, Buddy and Cutie Pie.
He faces a maximum of 10 years in prison for each count of making threats against a federal judge and up to five years for each count of making threats in interstate commerce if convicted.
Threats targeting federal judges overall have more than doubled in recent years amid a surge of similar violent messages directed at public officials around the country, the U.S. Marshals Service previously said.
In 2022, shortly after the leak of a draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, a man was stopped near the home of Justice Brett Kavanaugh with weapons and zip ties.
ROME (AP) — Canadian and Italian dignitaries on Thursday marked the successful recovery of a photo portrait of Winston Churchill known as “The Roaring Lion,” stolen in Canada and recovered in Italy after a two-year search by police.
At a ceremony at the Canadian Embassy in Rome, Italian carabinieri police handed over the portrait to the Canadian ambassador to Italy, Elissa Goldberg, who praised the cooperation between Italian and Canadian investigators that led to the recovery.
The 1941 portrait of the British leader taken by Ottawa photographer Yousuf Karsh is now ready for the last step of its journey home to the Fairmont Château Laurier, the hotel in Ottawa where it was stolen and will once again be displayed as a notable historic portrait.
Canadian police said the portrait was stolen from the hotel sometime between Christmas 2021 and Jan. 6, 2022, and replaced with a forgery. The swap was only uncovered months later, in August, when a hotel worker noticed the frame was not hung properly and looked different than the others.
Nicola Cassinelli, a lawyer in Genoa, Italy, purchased the portrait in May 2022 at an online Sotheby’s auction for 5,292 British pounds. He says he got a phone call from the auction house that October advising him not to sell or otherwise transfer the portrait due to an investigation into the Ottawa theft.
Cassinelli, who attended Thursday’s ceremony, said he thought he was buying a regular print and quickly agreed to send the iconic Churchill photograph home when he learned its true story.
“I immediately decided to return it to the Chateau Laurier, because I think that if Karsh donated it to the hotel, it means he really wanted it to stay there, for the particular significance this hotel had for him, and for his wife too,” Cassinelli told The Associated Press.
The famous image was taken by Karsh during Churchill’s wartime visit to the Canadian Parliament in December 1941. It helped launch Karsh’s career, who photographed some of the 20th century’s most famed icons, including Nelson Mandela, Albert Einstein and Queen Elizabeth.
Karsh and his wife Estrellita gifted an original signed print to the Fairmont Chateau Laurier in 1998. The couple had lived and operated a studio inside the hotel for nearly two decades.
Geneviève Dumas, general manager of the Fairmont Château Laurier, said on Thursday she felt immensely grateful.
“I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to everybody involved in solving this case, and ensuring the safe return of this priceless piece of history.”
Police arrested a 43-year-old man from Powassan, Ontario, in April and have charged him with stealing and trafficking the portrait. The man, whose name is protected by a publication ban, faces charges that include forgery, theft over $5,000 and trafficking in property obtained by crime exceeding $5,000.
CULIACAN, Mexico (AP) — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador blamed the United States in part on Thursday for the surge in cartel violence terrorizing the northern state of Sinaloa which has left at least 30 people dead in the past week.
Two warring factions of the Sinaloa cartel have clashed in the state capital of Culiacan in what appears to be a fight for power since two of its leaders were arrested in the United States in late July. Teams of gunmen have shot at each other and the security forces.
Meanwhile, dead bodies continued to pop up around the city. On one busy street corner, cars drove by pools of the blood leading to a body in a car mechanic shop, while heavily armed police in black masks loaded up another body stretched out on a side street of the Sinaloan city.
Asked at his morning briefing if the U.S. government was “jointly responsible” for this violence in Sinaloa, the president said, “Yes, of course … for having carried out this operation.”
The recent surge in cartel warfare had been expected after Joaquín Guzmán López, a son of former Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, landed near El Paso, Texas on July 25 in a small plane with Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.
Zambada was the cartel’s elder figure and reclusive leader. After his arrest, he said in a letter circulated by his lawyer that he had been abducted by the younger Guzmán and taken to the U.S. against his will.
On Thursday afternoon, another military operation covered the north of Culiacan with military and circling helicopters.
Traffic was heavy in Culiacan and most schools were open, even though parents were still not sending their children to classes. Businesses continue to close early and few people venture out after dark. While the city has slowly reopened and soldiers patrol the streets, many families continue to hide away, with parents and teachers fearing they’ll be caught in the crossfire.
“Where is the security for our children, for ourselves too, for all citizens? It’s so dangerous here, you don’t want to go outside,” one Culiacan mother told the Associated Press.
The mother, who didn’t want to share her name out of fear of the cartels, said that while some schools have recently reopened, she hasn’t allowed her daughter to go for two weeks. She said she was scared to do so after armed men stopped a taxi they were traveling in on their way home, terrifying her child.
During his morning press briefing, López Obrador had claimed American authorities “carried out that operation” to capture Zambada and that “it was totally illegal, and agents from the Department of Justice were waiting for Mr. Mayo.”
“If we are now facing instability and clashes in Sinaloa, it is because they (the American government) made that decision,” he said.
He added that there “cannot be a cooperative relationship if they take unilateral decisions” like this. Mexican prosecutors have said they were considering bringing treason charges against those involved in the plan to nab Zambada.
He was echoed by President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, who said later in the day that “we can never accept that there is no communication or collaboration.”
It’s the latest escalation of tensions in the U.S.-Mexico relationship. Last month, the Mexican president said he was putting relations with the U.S. and Canadian embassies “on pause” after ambassadors criticized his controversial plan to overhaul Mexico’s judiciary by requiring all judges to stand for election.
Still, the Zambada capture has fueled criticisms of López Obrador, who has throughout his administration refused to confront cartels in a strategy he refers to as “hugs not bullets.” On previous occasions, he falsely stated that cartels respect Mexican citizens and largely fight amongst themselves.
While the president, who is set to leave office at the end of the month, has promised his plan would reduce cartel violence, such clashes continue to plague Mexico. Cartels employ an increasing array of tactics, including roadside bombs or IEDs, trenches, home-made armored vehicles and bomb-dropping drones.
