Even if everything in the articles is true, the reporting was pretty sloppy. For one, they never clarified whether their sources had actually seen a transcript (or heard the recording) or whether it was just 2nd hand information. Since they didn't say either way, I'm assuming the latter.
The busing foreign students in from outside the riding to vote claim also didn't seem to garner much critical analysis by the journalists either. As the Statement of Claim lays out, the process for voting in a party nomination election is that you have to register with the party at least a week before the vote while providing your address, registrants can then be scrutinized by candidates' teams to check for irregularities, and then when you vote you need to have ID showing that you live at the address you provided. It's pretty unclear to me how busloads of students from out of the riding could achieve that without being noticed, but the reporters don't even address that.
And then there's the big thing where Dong is alleged to have suggested that releasing Kovrig and Spavor sooner would help the Conservatives. But none of the articles ever address how little sense that makes.
Also interesting is how he's responding to the specific allegations. He admits that his campaign provided bus transportation for seniors to vote for him and that because they largely don't speak or read English, that they were told where his name would appear on the ballot. But he says that's a normal procedure for campaigns. Maybe that's true, and it doesn't take a leap of logic to think that some may have written his name down so they'd recognize it. Maybe a little sketchy, but I'm not sure that implies some kind of Chinese government involvement.
For the call, he says that it took place in a "specific cultural context and in Mandarin" which intelligence sources could easily misinterpret. I've seen some speculation that Dong thinks that a mistranslation could be behind it. For instance "absolutely necessary" in Dong's southern dialect would sound a lot like "unnecessary" in a northern dialect (which a translator would likely be more familiar with). Now that's just speculation, but it seems like that's the kind of thing he's getting at. Or perhaps he did say what is alleged, but is trying to suggest that there's some cultural factor going on that would put those words in a better light (though that doesn't seem particularly convincing on its face).
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