Charles F. McGonigal was
a counterintelligence agent in charge of the FBI's New York Field Office during the Trump administration. Today he stands accused of accepting over $225,000 from a foreign intelligence officer, laundering the money, violating sanctions against Russia, and lying about it. This is a breaking story with details constantly emerging. What we know so far is that McGonigal faces two indictments in two different districts. He faces a nine count indictment in the District of Columbia (see PDF link above map) charging him with violating three federal statutes against concealment of material facts (18 U.S.C. 1001(a)(1)), making false statements (18 U.S.C. 1001(a)(2)), and falsification of documents (18 U.S.C. 1519). He also faces a five count indictment in the Southern District of New York charging him with two violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, one count of money laundering, and one count of making false statements (
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press ... 6/download). McGonigal was arrested over the weekend and is currently incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn (MDC Brooklyn).
The video below and media accounts of this case accusing McGonigal of violating sanctions against Russia might puzzle people who've only read the press release from D.C so far because it makes no mention of the parallel case in New York. As a result, we initially thought the news fake because it was reporting charges of violating Russian sanctions while we were looking at a press release and indictment which didn't mention sanctions at all. That is why we initially reported with skepticism the allegations of Russian collusion. Turns out the government issued two different press releases the same day with neither one referencing the other. This would lead most people in our position to conclude that we had seen the indictment when in fact we had only seen one of the indictments. They don't do that often.
The D.C. indictment alleges that in 2017 McGonigal began colluding with a group of Albanian men including a former intelligence officer residing in New Jersey and an advisor to the Albanian Prime Minister. McGonigal is alleged to have done them several favors while traveling across Europe during that time, but he mysteriously appears to only be charged with lying about the money and failing to disclose his dealings with foreign nationals. The FBI's press release accuses McGonigal of "engaging in other conduct in his official capacity as an FBI Special Agent in Charge that he believed would benefit the businessperson financially" so we are surprised not to see any charges related to accepting bribes or engaging in official misconduct. It is really odd to see someone accused of so much charged with merely concealing or lying about what he is accused of. It makes one wonder why he didn't just fill out the forms accurately if he didn't have to worry about facing charges for admitting to accepting the money or reciprocating with favors.
The New York indictment alleges that McGonigal conspired with a man named Sergey Shestakov to violate sanctions imposed on Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska following the 2014 annexation of Crimea. However, McGonigal is not accused of helping Deripaska circumvent sanctions until 2021 after he left the FBI. The other charges seem to stem from laundering money received as a result of violating the sanctions and lying about it (
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/fo ... -violating).
According to media reports, McGonigal was in charge of investigating allegation of collusion between Russia and Donald Trump's campaign in 2016. None o f the charges appear related to that.
