Here’s an interesting story to know about, against the backdrop of new House Barely Speaker Kevin McCarthy caterwauling about how Adam Schiff LIEEEEED TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE about Donald Trump’s collusion with Russia and TREEEEASON PARAPHRASED Trump’s very perfect call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, back in more innocent days when Trump was just extorting Ukraine to help him steal the 2020 election in exchange for protection from Russia.
Goddamn, that impeachment seems so much simpler to explain these days, don’t it?
The former top intelligence guy for the FBI’s New York field office, Charles McGonigal, has just been charged in federal courts in both DC and Manhattan with a number of very interesting crimes. For example, after he left the FBI, secretly working for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska investigating a rival oligarch, and also working on Deripaska’s behalf to get him off the US sanctions list, itself a violation of the sanctions. Also hiding $225,000 in other bribes from a different dude while he was working at the FBI.
So that’s weird, yeah?
Charles McGonigal, 54, who retired from the FBI in September 2018, was indicted in federal court in Manhattan on charges of money laundering, violating U.S. sanctions and other counts stemming from his alleged ties to Deripaska, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In his role at the FBI, McGonigal had been tasked with investigating Deripaska, whose own indictment on sanctions-violation charges was unsealed in September.
A second indictment, filed in Washington, accused McGonigal of hiding payments totaling $225,000 that he allegedly received from a New Jersey man employed decades ago by an Albanian intelligence agency. The indictment also accused him of acting to advance that person’s interests.
It seems bad for one of the former top intelligence guys at the FBI to be indicted for taking secret bribes and secretly working for the interests of one of Russia’s most powerful oligarchs, yeah? Especially one of the closest oligarchs to Vladimir Putin, Paul Manafort’s former boss, who was seemingly very close to the Russian operation to steal the 2016 election? Is that bad? Paul Manafort, of course, ran the Trump campaign, and pretty much every Russia report produced by the US government has concluded that he was integral to the NO COLLUSION!
Oh, and what was Manafort’s previous work for Deripaska? Propping up pro-Russian forces in Ukraine.
Trump Goon Paul Manafort Made $10 MILLION A YEAR To ‘Benefit Putin.’ Totally Normal!
It’s Manafort. It’s Always Been Manafort. And The Senate Intel Committee Seems To Agree!
NO COLLUSION! NO COLLUSION! You Know, Except For ALL THIS F*CKING COLLUSION!
Most of the regular news reporting on this is extremely dry and weeds-y and virtually unreadable to anyone who isn’t obsessed with this stuff, but this excerpt about McGonigal, way down at the bottom of the Washington Post‘s article, is some extremely important context we will briefly explore:
McGonigal was an expert on Russian intelligence activities targeting the United States, as well as U.S. efforts to recruit Russian spies, said several former intelligence officials who worked with him and spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive matters.
His position at the New York field office would have given him direct access to past and current recruitment efforts, work that was coordinated with the CIA, these people said. McGonigal was well-known at the CIA among officers who dealt with Russia and counterintelligence matters, and he knew the details of some intelligence operations targeting Russia, former officials said.
McGonigal has not been charged with espionage, but the former officials who worked with him said his knowledge and experience would have put him at high risk of being recruited by a foreign government.
Rightwing weirdos are already pretty sure this guy — this guy! Not the last guy or the guy before that, this guy! — will be the key to unraveling the Deep State conspiracy where Hillary Clinton colluded with Russia and the FBI in order to steal the election from herself for the sole purpose of destroying the life and presidency of God-fearing patriot and humble servant Donald Trump. They are pointing to the fact that in 2016, he was head of Cybercrimes at the home office in DC, and was one of the first people who knew about allegations from Trump campaign idiot George Papadopoulos that the Russians had big dirt on Hillary that they were going to deploy against her.
Trump himself is raaaaaaaging over McGonigal’s arrest on Truth Social:
“The FBI guy after me for the Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX, long before my Election as President, was just arrested for taking money from Russia, Russia, Russia,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday. “May he Rot In Hell!”
Yeah OK, buddy, mash your meds up in some ketchup and swallow them.
What’s more interesting to us is what happened later in 2016, closer to the election.
As Heather Cox Richardson explains, October of 2016 was when then-FBI Director James Comey moved McGonigal into that position as head of counterintel at the New York field office. And what was happening in October of 2016, specifically regarding the New York FBI field office? That was the one that was as intent on skullfucking the Clinton campaign as Russia was, the one that seemed to be leaking fake bullshit about Clinton to Rudy Giuliani, who was babbling on the radio that the FBI was going to “revolt” if she wasn’t indicted.
Fox News was cumming itself at the time screaming that Hillary’s indictment was coming, apparently sourced from some dumb bucktoothed idiot types at the New York office who were furious Main Justice wouldn’t sanction their investigation into the Clinton Foundation, since it was based on debunked, Breitbart-funded bullshit from that dumb Clinton Cash book.
As Cox Richardson reminds us, when James Comey went before Congress in 2018, he said he was worried that if he didn’t blabber forth 11 DAYS BEFORE THE ELECTION about the “re-opening” of the Hillary emails investigation, after some “new” (not new) emails were found, that the New York office would leak it. And more:
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.”
Yeah, so anyway!
Radicalized FBI Sleeper Cell Probably Led By Rudy Giuliani
James Comey Strikes Again (And Again And Again And Again)
Anthony Weiner’s Dick Explodes All Over Hillary Clinton’s Emails
Uh Oh, Did Adam Schiff Do TREASON COLLUSION With The Whistleblower’s Report? (No)
One more thing from Cox Richardson about what McGonigal did after his stint at the NY FBI office:
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.
And also went to work for Oleg Deripaska, which seems to tell us something about what kinda guy this dude is.
So yeah, huh! Weird stuff.
As she points out, these indictments aren’t about any of that stuff, but we kind of feel like — based on context clues — this guy might NOT end up being the guy who exposes the Deep State conspiracy where Hillary Clinton colluded with Russia and the FBI in order to steal the election from herself for the sole purpose of destroying the life and presidency of God-fearing patriot and humble servant Donald Trump.
We could be wrong.
Talking Points Memo has the indictments and much more on the charges related to the Albanian intelligence thingie, should you want to dive into the weeds.
Also here’s some MSNBC reporting on all this:
[Washington Post / Daily Beast / Heather Cox Richardson]
Follow Evan Hurst on Twitter right here!
And once that doesn’t exist, I’m also giving things a go at the Mastodon (@[email protected]) and at Post!
Have you heard that Wonkette DOES NOT EXIST without your donations? Please hear it now, and if you have ever enjoyed a Wonkette article, throw us some bucks, or better yet, SUBSCRIBE! Don’t use Paypal for your new monthly donations for the moment, though, we are having some long and boring ISSUES.
Source link
#GUY #Expose #Hillarys #FBI #Conspiracy #Steal #Election #Frame #Trump #Russia #Stuff