Government-shackled interference inquiry unlikely to get answers

From the MacDonald Laurier Institute

By Ryan Alford

” the commission will receive a large portion of its testimony in secret with no cross-examination by the parties. Additionally, the government will have the last word not merely on what information is provided to the inquiry, but on what the commission can publish — even in its final report “

The foreign interference inquiry into the 2019 and 2021 elections (also known as the “Hogue commission,” named for Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue) is holding preliminary hearings this week. Those with experience with public inquiries in general, and with the Rouleau commission into the emergency powers declaration of 2022 in particular, can see it will be a failure.

When it comes to public inquiries, the government makes the rules, and when it says, “Heads I win, tails you lose,” the only winning move is not to play. Those rules, written by the cabinet in the form of a public inquiry commission’s mandate and terms of reference, allow the government to reveal and restrict information about its own failures as it sees fit.

The most important feature of the Hogue commission’s mandate is the restriction on the information provided to the inquiry: the terms of reference state plainly that if the government didn’t provide a confidential cabinet document to Special Rapporteur David Johnston back in 2023 when he was tasked with looking into election interference without the authority of a public inquiry, the commissioner won’t see it, either.

The details that made it into Johnston’s final report were far more tame than what the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) allegedly told former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole when he led the party. O’Toole told Parliament that CSIS informed him that he had been targeted in an ongoing campaign of misinformation coordinated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). When asked, Johnston said that was news to him. (Subsequently, NDP MP Jenny Kwan added that CSIS had told her she was an “evergreen” target of Beijing.)

When Johnston was confronted about the discrepancies, he merely noted that the information CSIS revealed had not been made available to him at the time, and he had “reported on what was made available to us … the amount of information available was an ocean and we saw a very large lake.” (Unfortunately, Johnston could not see any issue with the political equivalent of investigating the causes of the sinking of the Titanic when directed to do so at Lac Tremblant).

Johnston concluded, based on the information provided to him by the government, that he could not attribute the misinformation spread during the 2021 election to state actors. Information coming from many unofficial sources — and via leaks — makes this untenable. Evidence also shows that Chinese Canadians in Richmond, B.C. were bombarded with slander targeting local Conservative MP Kenny Chiu on the WeChat social media platform.

The Hogue commission should add to its focus the activities of Senator Yuen Pau Woo — and the government’s knowledge of these activities. However, once again, the commission’s ability to investigate hinges entirely on the government’s willingness to hand over sensitive and potentially incriminating documents, and for those targeted by misinformation to speak freely knowing that information will be available immediately to those they named as their persecutors.

Until 2022, Woo served as the facilitator (i.e., caucus leader) of the Liberal-aligned Independent Senators Group. In a decision made on Dec. 4, Commissioner Hogue granted Woo the right to participate in the foreign interference inquiry as an intervenor, as “he will contribute the perspective of a political figure working to address issues of foreign interference while advocating for a community that risks being stigmatized or negatively impacted by counter-interference measures, whether proposed or put in place.”

Woo has been accused of adopting the CCP’s rhetoric but has denied working for China. Groups targeted by CCP intelligence operations in Canada (including Uyghurs and Hong Kongers) opposed Woo’s participation in the interference inquiry (along with that of politicians Han Dong and Michael Chan) on the ground that he would be allowed “access to sensitive information shared by witnesses or victims (and) will deter witnesses from speaking freely.”

Their concerns were aired around the same time as a report emerged alleging Woo had pledged to support the United Front, which is an arm of the CCP. In December, investigative journalist Sam Cooper reported that a recording existed of Woo briefing the Canada Committee 100 Society — a Chinese cultural organization with ties to the United Front according to declassified American intelligence — in May of 2020. In that recording, Woo advised members that groups officially listed by the CCP as United Front Work Department (UFWD) organizations cannot (and presumably, will not) be considered agents of the Chinese state.

However, a Privy Council Office report from 2020 shows that the government knew the CCP’s UFWD had allegedly coordinated electoral interference through community groups. The report specified that the UFWD had facilitated electoral interference in 2019, noting that “the UFWD’s extensive network of quasi-official and local community and interest groups allow it to obfuscate communication and the flow of funds between Canadian targets and Chinese officials.” Despite all this, Woo had reassured the Canada Committee 100 Society that they could continue their activities.

It is already a given that the commission will receive a large portion of its testimony in secret with no cross-examination by the parties. Additionally, the government will have the last word not merely on what information is provided to the inquiry, but on what the commission can publish — even in its final report, as the commission’s terms of reference refer to disclosure procedures that clearly implicate the attorney general’s power to withhold information for the purpose of national security.

This is why the first two days of the inquiry were devoted to managing expectations about how the public’s right to know would need to be “balanced” against national security confidentiality and all the other reasons the government will invoke to justify withholding and censoring information.

It is ironic that at an inquiry made possible by whistleblowers within CSIS, those at the commission will be classed “persons personally bound to secrecy” by an order-in-council issued in tandem with the mandate of the Hogue commission. Most won’t mind; the Hogue commission hired a number of personnel who did yeoman service at the Rouleau commission, including its lead counsel and research council chair.

This time around, there have been no grand public assurances that the government is committed to providing unprecedented access to information. Rather, we’ve been put on notice that obfuscation and dithering over confidentiality will be used to beat us down.

Some parties, like the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project, have already indicated they have had enough of the charade. Others, including those like members of Parliament Michael Chong and Jenny Kwan, who were the victims of shocking hostility and ineptitude from the CCP and the government, will likely persist, although it is already clear that they deserve much more information, and much better treatment from the Hogue commission.

As for myself, I can only say, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

Ryan Alford is a professor in the Bora Laskin Faculty of Law at Lakehead University and a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

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Inside Xi’s Fifth Column: How Beijing Uses Gangsters to Wage Political Warfare in Taiwan — and the West

Published on September 13, 2025

Duane Rolheiser

A new Jamestown Foundation report details how China’s Ministry of State Security and allied triads have been used to subvert Taiwan’s democracy as part of Beijing’s united front.

Editor’s Note

The Bureau has previously reported on how Chinese state-linked crime networks have exploited Canada’s real estate market, casinos, and diaspora associations, often under the cover of united front work. One of these groups, the Chinese Freemasons, has been linked to meetings with Canadian politicians, as reported by The Globe and Mail ahead of the 2025 federal election. The Globe noted that the Toronto chapter explicitly advocates for the “peaceful reunification of Taiwan.” The Jamestown Foundation’s new findings on groups active in Taiwan — including the Chinese Freemasons, also known as the Hongmen, the related Bamboo Union triad, and the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP) — show that Taiwan is the epicenter of a strategy also visible, though less intensively, across democracies including the United States. The parallels — from Vancouver to Sydney to New York to Taipei — should alert governments that the “fifth column” problem is international, and it is growing.

TAIPEI — At a banquet in Shenzhen more than two decades ago, Chang An-lo — the Bamboo Union boss known as “Big Brother Chang” or “White Wolf” — raised a glass to one of the Communist Party’s princelings. His guest, Hu Shiying, was the son of Mao Zedong’s propaganda chief. “Big Brother Chang,” Hu reportedly toasted him, an episode highlighted in a new report from the Jamestown Foundation.

Hu would later be described by Australian journalist John Garnaut as an “old associate of Xi Jinping.” That link — through Hu and other princelings Chang claimed to have met — placed the Bamboo Union leader within the orbit of Party elites. Garnaut also reported that the Ministry of State Security (MSS) had used the Bamboo Union to channel lucrative opportunities to Taiwanese politicians. According to Jamestown researcher Martin Purbrick, a former Royal Hong Kong Police intelligence officer, such episodes show how the CCP has systematically co-opted Taiwanese organized crime as part of its united front strategy.

“The long history of links between the CCP and organized crime groups in Taiwan,” Purbrick writes, “shows that United Front strategy has embedded itself deeply into Taiwan’s political life.”

Chang’s global influence is not a relic of the past. The Bureau reported, drawing on leaked 1990s Canadian immigration records, that intelligence indicated Chang’s triad had effectively “purchased” the state of Belize, on Mexico’s southern border, for use in smuggling illegal immigrants into the United States. But Chang is more relevant than ever as fears of Beijing invading Taiwan grow. In August 2025, seated in his Taipei office before a PRC flag, he appeared on a YouTube program to deny he led any “fifth column.” Instead, he insisted Taiwan must “embrace” Beijing and cast himself as a “bridge for cross-strait peace.”

His denial came just months after Taiwan’s Ministry of Justice accused CUPP of acting as a political front for organized crime and foreign interference. Police suspected more than 130 members of crimes ranging from homicide to drug trafficking. Prosecutors charged CUPP operatives with taking $2.3 million from the CCP to fund propaganda. In January, the Ministry of the Interior moved to dissolve the party outright, submitting the case to Taiwan’s Constitutional Court. By March, a Kaohsiung court sentenced CUPP deputy secretary-general Wen Lung and two retired military officers for recruiting Taiwanese personnel on behalf of the PRC. According to court filings, Wen had been introduced by Chang to the Zhuhai Taiwan Affairs Office, which in turn connected him to a PLA liaison officer.

President Lai Ching-te, in a March national security address, warned that Beijing was attempting to “divide, destroy, and subvert us from within.” Intelligence assessments in Taipei describe the Bamboo Union and CUPP as part of a potential “fifth column,” prepared to foment unrest and manipulate opinion in the event of an invasion.

The historical record shows why Taipei is so concerned. Chang’s name has shadowed some of Taiwan’s darkest chapters. In the 1980s, he was suspected of involvement in the assassination of dissident writer Henry Liu in California. He was later convicted of heroin smuggling in the United States, serving ten years in prison. After returning to Taiwan, he fled again in 1996 when authorities sought his arrest, spending 17 years in Shenzhen. During those years, he cultivated ties with influential Party families. At the Shenzhen banquet, Washington Post journalist John Pomfret wrote, Hu Shiying introduced him as “Big Brother Chang,” signaling acceptance in elite circles. Garnaut, writing over a decade later, noted that Hu was an “old associate of Xi Jinping” and that Chang had moved comfortably among other princelings, including sons of a former CCP general secretary and a top revolutionary general.

These connections translated into political capital. When Chang returned to Taiwan in 2013, he launched the China Unification Promotion Party — a pro-Beijing group openly advocating “one country, two systems.” He declared his mission was to “cultivate red voters.” CUPP cadres and Bamboo Union affiliates became visible in street politics, clashing with independence activists and disrupting rallies. During U.S. Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 2021 visit, they staged counter-protests echoing Beijing’s line.

The ideological warfare runs even deeper. A Phoenix TV segment from 2011 recalled how a Bamboo Union elder declared in 1981 that he “would rather the CCP rule Taiwan than have Taiwan taken away by Taiwan independents.” Chang himself has echoed this sentiment for decades. In 2005, he launched a Guangzhou-based group called the Defending China Alliance, later rebranded in Taipei as CUPP. His activism has spanned disruptive protests, nationalist rallies, and propaganda campaigns amplified through China-linked media channels.

Purbrick situates these developments within a wider united front playbook. Taiwanese triads and Chinese Freemason associations are courted as grassroots mobilizers, intermediaries, and psychological enforcers. A recent report from the Washington Post has also linked the Chinese Freemasons to the powerful 14K Triad, a global network deeply implicated in Chinese underground banking networks accused of laundering fentanyl proceeds for Mexican cartels through the United States. The triad–Hongmen nexus complements other CCP efforts: online influence campaigns, cultural outreach, and intelligence recruitment inside Taiwan’s military.

The implications extend beyond Taiwan. In Canada, Australia, the United States, Southeast Asia, and beyond, intelligence agencies have documented how PRC-linked triads launder drug profits, fund political donations, and intimidate diaspora critics. These groups benefit from tacit state protection: their criminality overlooked so long as they advance Beijing’s strategic objectives. It is hybrid warfare by stealth — not soldiers storming beaches, but criminal syndicates reshaping politics from within.

For Taiwan, the Bamboo Union and CUPP remain immediate threats. For other democracies, they serve as case studies of how united front tactics adapt across borders. President Lai’s warning that Beijing seeks to “create the illusion that China is governing Taiwan” resonates internationally.

Before leaving journalism to establish an advisory firm, John Garnaut himself became entangled in the political fallout of his reporting. He was sued by a Chinese-Australian real estate developer from Shenzhen, who had funneled large donations to Australian political parties. The developer, later publicly implicated in the case by an Australian lawmaker under parliamentary privilege, successfully sued Garnaut for defamation in 2019. Subsequent disclosures confirmed the tycoon’s implication in an FBI indictment involving United Nations influence schemes and notorious Chinese operative Patrick Ho, later linked to a Chinese oil conglomerate accused of targeting the Biden family in influence operations. Together, these episodes highlight the global reach of united front networks.

espionage

Ghislaine Maxwell Proffer: A Daughter Acknowledges Her Father’s Espionage Shadows but Denies Epstein’s Sex-Blackmail Op Rumors

Published on August 23, 2025

Todayville

Sam Cooper

In July 2025, inside a sealed Justice Department conference room in Tallahassee, Ghislaine Maxwell spoke at length about her life with Jeffrey Epstein. Across two days of questioning, she confronted the themes that now shadow the American administration and some of the world’s most powerful men: was her father, Robert Maxwell, the root of a sprawling intelligence operation—one that extended through his daughter’s relationship with the mysteriously wealthy Epstein and reached leaders from Prince Andrew to Bill Clinton and even Donald Trump?

The session was not a cooperation deal or plea bargain but a proffer under limited immunity. Prosecutors could impeach Maxwell if she later contradicted herself.

Maxwell sat with her lawyers. Across the table were Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Special Agent Spencer Horn, and Deputy U.S. Marshal Mark Beard. Their questions probed Epstein’s fortune, his circle of elites, the persistent intelligence rumors, and his death.

On Friday afternoon, the Justice Department released hundreds of pages of partially redacted transcripts and audio recordings from the interviews. The White House presented this as a gesture of transparency amid backlash from Trump’s base and criticism from Democrats. The redactions, though extensive in places, still allowed readers to follow the central exchanges.

The closest Maxwell came to portraying Epstein as involved in anything “covert” or “nefarious” was in a curious recollection: “He showed me a photograph of himself with African warlords… He said he was in the business of finding stolen money for billionaires. He would take a percentage of what he recovered.”

Did Maxwell—who has already been convicted of perjury—lie again to shield powerful friends?

One exchange, centering on perhaps the most notorious and publicly recognized piece of evidence in the Epstein saga, suggests she may have.

Blanche: “The photograph of Prince Andrew with Virginia Giuffre has been described as one of the most consequential pieces of evidence. How do you respond?”

Maxwell: “It’s manufactured. Literally a fake photo. My London flat was too small to host such an encounter, and the date on the back doesn’t match flight logs. My friendship with Andrew made him trust Epstein more, but I had nothing to do with that picture.”

On Robert Maxwell and Intelligence

Blanche: “With respect to your father, there have been multiple questions about whether he worked for any intelligence agency. Do you have any knowledge about that?”
Maxwell: “I think—well certainly my father had a background in intelligence… I believe he did in the second World War. He was… a British intelligence officer. I think that… once you’ve been an intelligence officer, you’re kind of—always; it doesn’t mean that you’re formally employed.”

She added she had “no formal knowledge” of specific activities, but believed he “did help people.”

On whether Robert Maxwell ever introduced her to Epstein, she was emphatic: “They never met… I know they never met.” She said her father vetted Epstein through Bear Stearns leaders “Jimmy Cayne and… Ace Greenberg.”

Maxwell’s words were cautious, but telling. She essentially confirmed what intelligence veterans often describe: once active in that world, many never fully leave. By her account, her father lived as a businessman and politician but remained an informal node in intelligence—“trading business or ideas” with powerful people and institutions.

This amounts to an acknowledgment: Robert Maxwell lived and died inside the world of intelligence. His role as publisher, financier, and political broker likely made him a valuable cutout, and that was likely a profitable arrangement for his family. Plausible reporting over decades has strongly supported ties to MI6 and Mossad. The most persistent allegations involve the sale of bugged PROMIS software to U.S. government agencies on behalf of Israel’s Mossad, and financial dealings with Soviet bloc actors. None of these claims have been proven in court. But the limited comments of Ghislaine Maxwell suggest she knew her father’s business well.

On Epstein, Mossad, CIA, and the FBI

Blanche: “Have you ever had any contact… from Mossad…?”
Maxwell: “Well, not deliberately… Not deliberately.”

Blanche: “Did you ever think that Mr. Epstein was getting any money from any intelligence agency, including Mossad?”
Maxwell: “Well, I don’t believe so, but I wouldn’t know. I mean, I would be very surprised if he did. I don’t think so. No.”

Horn: “CIA? DIA?”
Maxwell: “I don’t think so. I just don’t think he had the wherewithal, and I think that whole aspect is bullshit.”

Her denials stand in contrast with reasonably credible, though not court-validated, media reporting. In 2019, journalist Vicky Ward reported in The Daily Beast that a former White House official said they had heard Alexander Acosta—then U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, who handled Epstein’s 2007 plea deal at the end of the George W. Bush presidency—tell Trump transition interviewers in 2017: “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to ‘leave it alone,’” adding that Epstein was “above his pay grade.”

Epstein’s Suspicious Wealth

Blanche: “How did Epstein make his money?”
Maxwell: “He started as a math teacher at Dalton. From there he was hired by Bear Stearns… At Bear Stearns, he developed some new type of trading system—a trading vehicle. Then, after a disagreement, he left. That’s when he said he was in the business of finding stolen money for billionaires. He would take a percentage of what he recovered. But I was not part of his business world, except tangentially.”

She identified “very important clients”: Les Wexner—for whom Epstein “structured or restructured The Limited,” handled “his entire personal finances,” and “all of the investment strategy” (she speculated the 71st-Street townhouse, the vast Upper East Side mansion that became Epstein’s New York base, factored into compensation); Leon Black—“the same as what he did for Wexner”; another connected female in their circle provided the—“same help in business,” and even “contracts for the maids”; and there was an unnamed wealthy Ohio woman with “the largest Klein painting.”

Rumors have long swirled that Epstein’s fortune was less about finance and more about leverage — that his friendships with billionaires, politicians, and world leaders provided opportunities for kompromat, even blackmail. Investigators, journalists, and critics have speculated that his homes may have doubled as “honey traps,” recording powerful men in compromising situations to secure influence.

On blackmail: “Never. No… I thought he was a legitimate businessman, very conscientious, very good at math.”

On Clinton, Trump, Barak, and Movie Stars

Blanche: “You’ve been named on flight logs with President Clinton. How would you describe his relationship with Mr. Epstein?”
Maxwell: “President Clinton was my friend. Not Epstein’s… Clinton traveled on Epstein’s plane twenty-six times, or whatever the flight logs say. I was there. He never received a massage. I never saw anything improper.”

Blanche: “Did you ever see Mr. Clinton participate in massages or any improper behavior with young women?”
Maxwell: “No. Never. I was there. He never received a massage. I never saw anything improper.”

On specifics, she described joint travel:

Cuba, where she said Clinton met Fidel Castro.
Italy, a Vatican visit with Clinton aide Mark Middleton and Middleton’s wife to see Henry VIII’s divorce documents.
Africa, where Clinton flew with Chris Tucker and Kevin Spacey aboard Epstein’s jet.

She also volunteered: “I was very central in the ramp-up [of] the Clinton Global Initiative” and suggested Epstein “may have helped me help them” financially—without details.

Blanche: “What about Donald Trump? Your name and his are often linked through Epstein.”
Maxwell: “My father knew Trump. I admired him… Trump was never inappropriate with anybody. Never.”

Blanche: “Did you ever see Mr. Trump at Epstein’s homes or on his planes?”
Maxwell: “No. I never saw anything like that. I never saw him in any improper context with Epstein.”

Horn: “We’ve seen reports of Epstein’s relationship with Ehud Barak. Given your father’s deep ties to Israel, what was your impression of that connection?”
Maxwell: “I can think of Ehud Barak, yes. But I don’t know the details of their relationship. My father loved Israel, so I pay attention to it. We have ties to Israel. But I can’t tell you more.”

On the “Black Book”

Blanche: “Was there a client list? A black book of names?”
Maxwell: “There is no list. We’ll start with that… Nothing like that.”

On Epstein’s Prison Death

Maxwell said she does not believe Epstein killed himself, but also rejected the idea that he was silenced to protect powerful figures.

“I do not believe he died by suicide, no,” Maxwell said.

When asked if she had any theory about who might have killed him, she replied, “I don’t.” Pressed further on whether she thought Epstein was murdered to “keep him quiet” because he had information about “rich and powerful people,” she answered, “I do not have any reason to believe that.”

“And I also think it’s ludicrous,” she added, noting that if such people had wanted him dead, “they would’ve had plenty of opportunity when he wasn’t in jail.”

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