Ex-FBI Counterintelligence Chief Sentenced to Over 4 Years

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Facts

  • After pleading guilty in August to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, former FBI agent Charles McGonigal was sentenced on Thursday to more than four years in prison for violating US sanctions by working with Russian diplomat Sergey Shestakov to help Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska.1
  • McGonigal worked as the head of counterintelligence at the FBI's New York office until he retired in 2018. One of the federal prosecutors, Hagan Scotten, said in court Thursday that McGonigal's position was 'one of the most important' anti-spying jobs in the country, adding that it 'should have been the crowning achievement in his FBI career.'2
  • He also investigated former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page and received information from Hillary Clinton's emails with a foreign diplomat. The conversation helped launch the probe into alleged Trump-Russia collusion — accusations a special prosecutor ultimately said were never 'technically plausible.' The former agent has now been found to have tried to help Deripaska get off the US sanctions list.3
  • In 2021, McGonigal, whose cellphone helped investigators uncover his relationship with Shestakov, agreed to investigate a competitor of Deripaska in exchange for hidden payments. His end of the bargain with the businessman included helping one of his representatives, Yevgeny Fokin, get his daughter an internship at the New York Police Department.2
  • McGonigal is expected to be sentenced on Feb. 16 for a separate case involving money laundering from an Albanian intelligence employee. Federal prosecutors also accuse him of abusing his authority by having an agent chauffeur a woman who claimed to be his girlfriend and improperly using his FBI credentials and parking placard after he left the agency.4
  • US District Judge Jennifer Rearden said McGonigal, whose career included working terrorism cases such as 9/11, 'made profoundly important contributions to our government' but that his crimes were serious and threatened national security. This came in response to his lawyers citing his career accomplishments as reasons for him to receive a non-incarceration sentence.5

Sources: 1BBC News, 2New York Times, 3Daily Wire, 4Wall Street Journal (a) and 5Wall Street Journal (b).

Narratives

  • Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by Washington Post. As the US has worked hard to deter the power and influence of these Russian billionaires through sanctions, McGonigal chose the greedy route by enriching himself at the expense of American national security. It's a shame that a man with such a decorated career should find himself in this situation. No one is above the law, even FBI agents with storied careers.
  • Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by Newsweek. McGonigal hid his own corrupt ties to Russian oligarchs while launching the now-debunked Russia probe into an elected US president. During the two years the government was conducting its case against Trump, one of its top so-called investigators was getting rich doing exactly what he accused others of doing.