Despite repeated refusals to answer questions about Mayor Rob Ford’s involvement in a sweeping investigation into the gun and drug trade in Toronto, there is plenty Chief Bill Blair can say without breaking the law, legal experts told the Star.

The chief has been pressed to respond to questions about the existence of a video that appears to show Ford smoking crack cocaine. He has been grilled on whether there is a criminal investigation into the mayor’s office.

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Blair has steadfastly refused to clear the mayor, saying the law won’t allow him to disclose such information despite the public interest.

“The law is absolutely crystal clear on this about precisely what the legal requirement and the constraints on police are,” he said at a June 13 press conference following the pre-dawn raid. “I’m going to follow the law. The law doesn’t change.”

Three criminal lawyers said Blair could legally answer a wide variety of questions about the mayor, the only exception being information derived from a wiretap.

“There’s nothing in law that prevents him from talking about the mayor’s potential involvement in this case and talking about — or releasing — the video,” said criminal lawyer Daniel Brown. “It’s a choice and they’re choosing not to discuss it.

“I don’t know why the chief wouldn’t clear the mayor if he is not part of any investigation,” added Brown, who is representing one of the men arrested in the raid.

Toronto police spokesperson Mark Pugash explained Blair’s position: “We will not do anything that has even the slightest possibility of damaging a prosecution that’s before the courts. Our position on this is absolutely consistent. The fact that the questions are about the mayor is irrelevant.”

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Last week, police orchestrated a massive raid and laid 224 charges against 44 people from Toronto, Windsor, Edmonton and Detroit, targeting what they say was a guns and drug ring operated by the gang Dixon City Bloods.

On Thursday, Blair will update the police board about the raid in a secret session prior to its public meeting.

Sources have told the Star that police became aware of the existence of the video during surveillance for the investigation, dubbed Project Traveller.

Two Star reporters watched the video that appeared to show Ford smoking crack cocaine and making homophobic and racially charged statements. They were shown the video in the back seat of a car in a parking lot by a Dixon Rd. apartment complex. The complex was hit in the raids.

Ford has said he does not smoke crack and that the video does not exist.

According to sources, the mayor, in a meeting with staff after the video story broke, blurted out the address of two units in the same Dixon Rd. apartment complex where he said the video could be found.

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An address on Windsor Rd., which was subject to a search warrant, was the setting of a photograph given to the Star reporters of Ford and three men, one of whom was shot and killed in March and two others who were arrested in the raid last week.

Pugash said police disclose “things,” not evidence. For example, he said, guns and drugs are things. Who bought and sold those “things” is evidence. A video of the mayor allegedly smoking crack is evidence, not a “thing,” because individuals in it can be identified.

Mark Halfyard, a criminal appeals lawyer with Rusonik, O’Connor, Robbins, Ross, Gorham & Angelini, said the video wouldn’t affect any court case.

“When you have a video, it is not the type of soft evidence — like evidence gathered from eye witnesses’ accounts of certain events — that might later distort the evidence of other potential witnesses if the information is given out to the public,” he said.

Essentially, the video is a “thing,” according to Halfyard and Brown, and can be released. Pugash disagrees.

At the heart of the questions about Ford’s potential involvement in the investigation is what police tell the public, the legal experts said. And there is no hard-and-fast rule, legal or otherwise.

“I don’t know if there is any rhyme or reason for when police disclose information,” said Alan Young, a legal professor at York University. “We’ve seen lots of cases where they seem to release a lot of information about an investigation.”

Pugash elaborated on what information police disclose: “If someone said, ‘How many times have police gone to (this reporter’s) house?’ we wouldn’t answer that. If people said, ‘How many times has he called 911?’ we wouldn’t answer that. The only way we could answer that is if (this reporter) gave us permission for us to do that. And that applies, irrespective of who it is.”

Where experts agree with Blair is on the law around the disclosure of wiretap information.

Last week, Blair was asked to confirm or deny a report that police had wiretapped Ford’s phone.

“The Criminal Code makes it an offence to disclose such information,” he said.

Blair could face up to two years in jail for disclosing the contents or even existence of wiretaps until they’re disclosed in court, according to section 193.1 of the Criminal Code of Canada.

With files from Jennifer Pagliaro

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