A veteran Canadian journalist defended himself on Friday from a former Conservative cabinet minister’s allegations that he was a Russian agent.
David Pugliese responded to what he called the “false claims” after Chris Alexander testified about him at the Public Safety and National Security Committee.
“I was never approached by anybody, Russians, Chinese, you name it. And, no, I’m not a Russian spy,” the Ottawa Citizen reporter told Global News in an interview.
“No, I’m not a Russian James Bond.”
Appearing at a hearing on Russian disinformation on Thursday, Alexander said Moscow had been recruiting Westerners, and cited Pugliese as an example.
The former immigration minister accused the reporter of “long-running covert ties to Moscow” and tabled documents he said chronicled the KGB’s recruitment of him.
“In a nutshell, these records document a KGB operation to talent spot, recruit, develop and run as an agent a Canadian citizen who’s been a prominent journalist in this country for over three decades,” he said.
He later named the journalist as Pugliese, whom he said had reported on themes that “aim to weaken Canadian support for Ukraine.”
He said the documents had been authenticated and shared with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and Canadian Armed Forces.
But the heads of the two archives of KGB documents in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv told Global News they did not have any such materials.
The Sectoral State Archive of Security Service of Ukraine said Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service would have instead kept files of that nature.
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The head of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine archive, Oleksandr Feshenko, said that “no information about the above-mentioned person was found.”
According to a translation of the documents, they discuss the possible recruitment of the “promising” Canadian reporter, spanning from 1984 to 1990.
There is no suggestion in the materials that the Russians ever successfully recruited anyone or were even eyeing any targets.
Several experts on KGB documents said the papers appeared to be legitimate but did not suggest the reporter was ever a Russian agent, only that the Soviets looked at him.
“The KGB approached many people, and in many cases, it didn’t go anywhere,” said Seva Gunitsky, an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto.
Simon Miles, an associate professor at Duke University in North Carolina, said they were consistent with files held at the KGB archives in Kyiv, but they revealed very little.
“All they say is that an individual by this name came to the attention of KGB officials, not even necessarily very senior ones and that they were interested in exploring him as a potential target of recruitment,” he said.
“So nothing in these documents clearly says that this individual was even approached, or certainly says that that approach was successful. All they do is say this is something worth exploring.”
The president of Docufraud Canada, Dwayne Strocen, said he analyzed the papers, examining the typewritten entries, handwriting and stamps and determined they were genuine.
“It was our determination through microscopic examination that they were all written from that time period,” he said. “It’s our professional and expert opinion that these documents are all genuine and authentic.“
He said it was possible to fake documents. But he said in this case, “if this was an elaborate hoax, it would be an elaborate hoax beyond all reasonableness.”
Pugliese said he had asked the public safety committee for the opportunity to appear and respond to Alexander’s allegations.
He said he was not even living in Ottawa for much of the 80s, and he had never attended a conference on Afghanistan mentioned in the files.
“I’m none of this stuff that Mr. Alexander alleges, behind parliamentary privilege so he cannot be sued. To me, this is just this is an attack on my journalism,” he said.
“I’ve done a lot of stories showing misappropriation of funds, showing different things that are going on in the military which shouldn’t.”
“So that’s what journalists do. And obviously, I think people in power or somebody has been ticked off about my reporting.”
He said he believes the accusations stem from his news reports last year about charities operating in Ukraine run by Canadian Forces personnel.
“And the Ukrainians made allegations that some of the equipment they were getting donated was ineffective and putting lives at risk,” he said.
The stories prompted a $7-million libel suit against Pugliese that employer Postmedia is defending in the Ontario court.
“And so a lot of this has to do with this ongoing legal action about those articles,” he said.
In a statement, Postmedia called Pugliese a “trusted and esteemed” member of its staff, and said the allegations were baseless. “We reject that accusation and stand firmly behind David.”
The Canadian Association of Journalists denounced the “dangerous” attack on Pugliese, while the union representing media workers, CWA Canada, called it “twisted and sinister.”