The New York Times is reporting that Kash Patel temporarily halted some FBI cooperation with the RCMP this month after the CBC “reminded its journalists of a longstanding policy not to refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as ‘terrorism’ without attribution to experts.”
The story is attributed to “multiple officials with knowledge of the event,” who spoke to The Times on the condition of anonymity “to describe the sensitive law enforcement dynamics.”
It dubs Patel’s temporary cooperation halt as an “extraordinary move to punish the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.”
The source of Patel’s ire, according to The Times, was a memo CBC circulated to reporters and editors across its news platforms ahead of the 9/11 anniversary reminding them not to refer to the attacks that claimed 3,000 lives and changed the modern world as “terrorist attacks.”
The CBC quickly reversed its policy after the memo was leaked to the media and criticized by Canadian and U.S. officials, including the U.S. ambassador to Canada and Patel.
In a pointed critique, the FBI director referred to the language policy as a “bastardization of history.”
“Any agency in Canada that doesn’t publicly reject this bastardization of history, and an insult to the souls lost during our largest terrorist attack in US history will no longer have friend in this FBI… Not to mention our heroes that responded in the aftermath,” he wrote on X late last month.
The cooperation disruption between the RCMP and the FBI “appears to have been short-lived,” according to The Times, which notes “it was specific to the F.B.I. Other parts of the U.S. government involved in intelligence-sharing continued with their operations. And not every element of cooperation between the F.B.I. and the mounted police was halted.”
The RCMP and Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree did not respond immediately Friday to National Post queries about the temporary halt in cooperation with the FBI.
Patel’s “abrupt move,” The Times said, “risked disrupting F.B.I. operations with Canada and jeopardizing the organization’s relationship with Canada’s national law enforcement agency, which works closely with the bureau on a wide range of issues, including terrorism and cybersecurity cases.”
The Times reported that FBI officials cancelled meetings with their Canadian counterparts during the halt in cooperation, saying “they would be out of touch for some time, leading to a chilling between the two agencies.”
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