DEEP STATE HYPOCRISY: Top FBI Official Who Investigated Trump’s Ties to Russia Just Arrested for Taking Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars From Russians
By Washington Times. A former top FBI counterintelligence official who was involved in the Trump-Russia collusion investigation was arrested and charged with conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions on Russia, federal prosecutors announced Monday.
Charles McGonigal, who had been the special agent in charge of the FBI‘s counterintelligence division in New York, is accused of taking secret payments from Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska in exchange for investigating a rival oligarch, according to court documents.
Mr. McGonigal, 54, is one of the highest-ranking FBI officials ever charged with a crime. He faces one count of violating U.S. sanctions, one count of money laundering and two conspiracy counts.
Each of the four counts, which were filed in a New York federal court, carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Corey Lewandowski, former Trump campaign manager, said the indictment underscores the duplicity of the FBI.
“The depth of the corruption inside the FBI knows no bounds. They quite literally had the fox guarding the hen house as it relates to Donald J. Trump,” he told The Washington Times. “The chief ‘investigator’ of alleged ties between Trump and Russia turns out to have his own illegal ties to Russia. Nothing shocks me anymore.” (Read more from “DEEP STATE HYPOCRISY: Top FBI Official Who Investigated Trump’s Ties to Russia Just Arrested for Taking Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars From Russians” HERE)
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Ex-FBI Official Involved in Trump-Russia Probe Indicted for Working on Behalf of Sanctioned Russian Oligarch
By National Review. Charles McGonigal, a former FBI official involved in the investigation of Donald Trump’s ties to Russia, has been charged with violating sanctions and collaborating with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, the Department of Justice announced Monday.
According to federal prosecutors, McGonigal received “concealed payments” from a Russian intelligence officer in exchange for his help in having sanctions targeting Deripaska lifted. McGonigal is being charged by the Federal District in Manhattan with additional counts relating to money laundering and conspiracy.
“Charles McGonigal, a former high-level FBI official, and Sergey Shestakov, a Court interpreter, violated U.S. sanctions by agreeing to provide services to Oleg Deripaska, a sanctioned Russian oligarch. They both previously worked with Deripaska to attempt to have his sanctions removed, and, as public servants, they should have known better,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams wrote in a statement released Monday.
As chief of counterintelligence in the bureau’s New York City field office, McGonigal was among the first FBI officials to learn of the fateful conversation between a senior Trump campaign adviser and a foreign diplomat over the topic of Hillary Clinton’s emails, the Washington Free Beacon noted. Knowledge of that interaction proved crucial to the federal agency opening an investigation into the matter, which ultimately found there was no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. (Read more from “Ex-FBI Official Involved in Trump-Russia Probe Indicted for Working on Behalf of Sanctioned Russian Oligarch” HERE)
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