FBI Director Kash Patel was branded "unfit" by a prominent law expert after he halted some cooperation with Canada's national police force over a broadcaster's policy on calling 9/11 terrorism.
Patel temporarily halted some cooperation between the FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police this month, The New York Times reported Friday, citing multiple officials familiar with the episode.
The move was specific to the FBI and appears to have been short-lived, according to the Times. Other U.S. intelligence-sharing continued, and not every part of the two agencies' work stopped.
The two forces work together on terrorism and cybersecurity cases, the Times reported, and the halt risked disrupting those operations.
The dispute began with an internal memo at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a public broadcaster editorially independent of the Canadian government. It reminded journalists ahead of the Sept. 11 anniversary of the network's longstanding policy of attributing the word "terrorism" to an expert or authority.
A columnist at The Toronto Sun obtained the memo. Many major news organizations have similar rules for breaking news, the Times reported, but not for historical attacks that are already well established as terrorism.
Patel threatened Canada in a series of posts on X in late August, amplifying New York Post coverage of the guidance, according to the Times.
"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," Patel wrote on X.
He added an American flag and the words "WE WILL NEVER FORGET 9-11," the Times reported.
CBC News backed down on Aug. 28, when its head of standards issued updated guidance saying the term "terrorism" could be used to describe the attacks without attribution.
Marc Miller, Canada's culture minister, called the update a "welcome change to what was a piece of pedantic and foolish guidance that caused legitimate anger," according to the Times.
Some collaboration between the FBI and the RCMP stopped anyway within days, the Times reported. Bureau officials canceled meetings with their Canadian counterparts and told them they would be out of touch for some time.
The Americans wanted some form of apology, one person with knowledge of the episode told the Times, although it is unclear whether one was ever offered. The halt ended around the anniversary of the attacks.
"Unfit," New York University law professor Ryan Goodman wrote on X on Friday, sharing the Times' finding that the move jeopardized the bureau's relationship with Canada's national police.
"We value our relationship with our U.S. counterparts, as we work closely to respond to threats to national security and maintain situational awareness of emerging risks," the RCMP said in a statement, according to the Times.
A spokesman for the FBI declined to comment, the Times reported. A White House spokeswoman did not answer questions about whether the president or his advisers knew about the pause while it was happening.
The halt came as President Donald Trump escalated his pressure campaign on Canada. The United States imposed new tariffs on Canadian goods in late August and Canada retaliated, the Associated Press reported.
Trump signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario as "Lake America" in the United States on Aug. 27, the day before CBC News reversed its guidance, according to the AP. He has also said repeatedly that Canada should become the 51st state.
Until now, there was no indication that the war of words and trade had affected traditional national security cooperation, according to the Times. U.S. allies have long worried that the Trump administration could cut off intelligence or law enforcement sharing to gain leverage.
Carney described the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorism in a statement last week, the Times reported. Twenty-four Canadians were among the dead.
