Republican Reps. Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan are demanding answers from the FBI about how one of its top counterintelligence investigators was in league with a Russian national sanctioned by the U.S. government.
The Justice Department announced on Monday the arrest of Charles McGonigal, a former special agent in charge of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division in New York. Prosecutors allege that McGonigal and a former Russian diplomat worked on behalf of Russian oil oligarch Oleg Deripaska to investigate a competitor.
Deripaska had been sanctioned by the Trump administration, which McGonigal knew from his work with the FBI.
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Prosecutors maintain McGonigal took money from Deripaska, housed in phony shell companies, and worked to keep the Russian’s identity secret. Accordingly, he now faces four counts of violating U.S. sanctions laws, money laundering, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
McGonigal began the relationship with Deri paska in 2021, three years after he had retired from the FBI.
On Monday night, Fox News anchor Sean Hannity noted that McGonigal also was one of the top FBI officials who helped launch the Russia-collusion investigation into former President Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, Deripaska was working with former British spy Christopher Steele, the source of the phony dossier about Trump that was used as the foundation for the FBI’s empty collusion case and its spying on Trump’s campaign and on him later after he took office.
Gaetz, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, told Hannity that the lawmakers seek two things through their demand for information from the FBI about McGonigal and anticipated hearings about the politicization of agencies involved in protecting national security.
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The first thing, Gaetz said, is to learn how corrupted by politics the FBI and other agencies have become.
The second, with the advent of McGonigal’s case, is to discover how much foreign cash influences federal law enforcement.
“What we now know,” said Gaetz, “is that the head of counterintelligence at the New York field office was turned by the Russians, and this is the very person who helped do the intake on the initial Russia hoax.”
Gaetz said GOP lawmakers must find out when exactly the Russians flipped McGonigal.
“I’m very concerned that it may have been while he was at the FBI,” Gaetz added. “There could be real dangers to national security.”
On Monday, Gaetz added on Twitter, “Those who perpetrated the Russian collusion hoax on the American people were, in fact, taking corrupt cash from Russia.”
“That’s why @Jim_Jordan and I will hold hearings, bring whistleblowers forward, and demand answers to determine how deep the rot goes.”
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