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No, I Will Not Get Over It
Author: Raine    Date: 01/26/2023 13:34:28

Amid the news of all the gun violence last weekend, it might be easy to forget that a very important arrest was made.

Specifically, it was the arrest of the special agent in charge of counterintelligence of the FBI's New York Field Office, His name is Charles McGonigal.
He was charged along with a court interpreter, Sergey Shestakov, who also worked with Deripaska.

McGonigal, 54, is charged with violating U.S. sanctions by trying to get Deripaska off the sanctions list. McGonigal is one of the highest ranking former FBI officials ever charged with a crime.

"Charlie has had a long, distinguished career with the FBI. He's served the United States for decades," McGonigal's lawyer, Seth DuCharme, told ABC News in a statement. "This is obviously a distressing day for Mr. McGonigal and his family, but we'll review the evidence, we'll closely scrutinize it, and we have a lot of confidence in Mr. McGonigal."

McGonigal and Shestakov, who worked for the FBI investigating oligarchs, allegedly agreed in 2021 to investigate a rival Russian oligarch in return for payments from Deripaska, according to the Justice Department. McGonigal and Shestakov are accused of receiving payments through shell companies and forging signatures in order to keep it a secret that Deripaska was paying them.
This guy was deep in the thick of all sorts of things in the 2016 election, you remember the one with the email lady? Here is a refresher.
On October 4, 2016, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey named McGonigal the head of counterintelligence for the FBI’s New York field office. As the special agent in charge, McGonigal supervised and participated in investigations of Russian oligarchs. Before that, he was the section chief of the Cyber-Counterintelligence Coordination Section at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Charges against McGonigal—who is one of the highest ranking FBI members ever charged with a crime—stem from his connection to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin. The United States sanctioned Deripaska in 2018 for working for the Russian state to destabilize Ukraine. Deripaska was also a close associate of political operative Paul Manafort, who ran Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Manafort was convicted in 2018 of a number of crimes associated with his ties to Russia. Trump pardoned him.

(snip)

While there is a lot we still don’t know, we do know that in 2018, Comey told Congress he worried that officials in the FBI’s New York field office had given Trump ally Rudy Giuliani sensitive information in the last days of the 2016 election, after Giuliani had said so in front of television cameras. Giuliani made that claim in October, after McGonigal took over that office.

We know that Comey told investigators that he released news of the reopened investigation of Clinton’s emails—against Department of Justice policy, right before the election with voting already underway—out of concern that “people in New York” would leak that information. Former acting attorney general Sally Yates was clearer. She told the inspector general that Comey and other FBI officials “felt confident that the New York Field Office would leak it and that it would come out regardless of whether he advised Congress or not.”

We also know that after McGonigal left the FBI, he went to work for Brookfield Properties, the multibillion-dollar real-estate company in New York that handled the bailout of Jared Kushner’s 666 Fifth Avenue by a $1.1 billion, 99-year lease—all paid up front—thanks to the Qatar Investment Authority.
It's a lot to process, for sure. This has been on the horizon for a long time. From 2019, The Justice Department continues to investigate leaks surrounding the 2016 campaign, including a New York field office that was “playing by its own rules,” according to a former official. Could the inspector general be targeting Giuliani too? Business Insider had a big scoop about this guy back in September of last year.

Going back to 2016:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FnNCHsIWAAEOgn2?format=jpg

3 weeks later, Comey would make the announcement that changed the course of the 2016 election, and history itself. 7 months later, TFG dismissed James Comey. Turns out, Trump-Russia wasn't just a blip on the radar, it all happened before our eyes.

Don't even get me started on the buried story from 2016: Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia? That has McGonigal's fingerprints all over it.

I will never get over what they did and still are, to our small 'D' democracy.

&
Raine

 
 

7 comments (Latest Comment: 01/26/2023 14:36:23 by Raine)
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Comment by Raine on 01/26/2023 14:06:55
About Wen Ho Lee (mentioned in the image above)



Comment by Raine on 01/26/2023 14:10:55


Comment by Raine on 01/26/2023 14:22:38


Comment by Will_in_LA on 01/26/2023 14:25:54
Good morning, bloggers!!!!

I find this story very concerning. While I doubt there will be much coverage of this news, I think that history will take a very harsh look at the FBI in our era.

Also, my deepest condolences to trojanrabbit on the passing of his mother. I read most of yesterday's blog late last night. May her memory be for a blessing.

Comment by Will_in_LA on 01/26/2023 14:29:18
Quote by Raine:


This story is now even more troubling. than before. The questions must be asked if McGonigal compromised that investigation.


Comment by Raine on 01/26/2023 14:33:01
Quote by Will_in_LA:
Quote by Raine:


This story is now even more troubling. than before. The questions must be asked if McGonigal compromised that investigation.
There is a real possibility that a LOT of cases were compromised at the very least.



Comment by Raine on 01/26/2023 14:36:23
Current and former FBI officials, none of whom were willing or cleared to speak on the record, have described a chaotic internal climate that resulted from outrage over director James Comey’s July decision not to recommend an indictment over Clinton’s maintenance of a private email server on which classified information transited.

“The FBI is Trumpland,” said one current agent.

This atmosphere raises major questions about how Comey and the bureau he is slated to run for the next seven years can work with Clinton should she win the White House.

The currently serving FBI agent said Clinton is “the antichrist personified to a large swath of FBI personnel,” and that “the reason why they’re leaking is they’re pro-Trump.”

I want to know the reporters sources.