AG Knudsen Tells Canada: No More Spying at Montana Gun Shows

A foreign law enforcement agency wants to spy on Montana gun shows? Montana's Attorney General is telling them to stay out.

We caught up with AG Austin Knudsen (R-MT) on Monday's Montana Talks statewide radio show.

Do you remember a while back when it became public that Canadian law enforcement was spying on a gun show in Great Falls, Montana? Cascade County Sheriff Jesse Slaughter said the Canadian authorities didn't coordinate their investigation ahead of time with local authorities and it could have created a blue on blue friendly fire incident, so he ordered the Canadian authorities and their US ATF counterparts to leave.

AG Knudsen tells us that the Canadians are hoping to do a similar spy operation at Montana gun shows very soon. 

AG Knudsen: "My hair is absolutely on fire...Well, guess what happened this week, we had the Royal Canadian Mounted Police reach out to Montana Department of Justice. They reached out to our Division of Criminal Investigation, DCI, because they want to do the same thing. They want to come to the Bozeman Gun Show and they want to come to the Kalispell Gun Show and conduct surveillance. I absolutely hit the roof and instructed my agencies we are absolutely not being any part of this. We do not need Justin Trudeau conducting China style surveillance here in America. If he wants to surveil his citizens, he can conduct surveillance in Canada. I've already talked to Sheriff Springer in Bozeman, Sheriff Heino in Flathead County- we're all on the same sheet of music here. This is inappropriate, probably illegal, and if we need to- we'll sue the federal government over this one too. But we're still kind of looking for details. But I did find out just within the last couple of days that this is what Canada is wanting to do. And unfortunately, I think Joe Biden is going to play ball with him. I think he's going to try to let him do it. We're gonna be on our toes here and try to try to get this shut down."

Full audio can be found once Monday's 9a hour podcast uploads here: