The former head of counterintelligence at the FBI's New York field office has been sentenced to more than four years in prison for colluding with Russia.
Charles McGonigal, who spent 22 years working with the FBI, "pleaded guilty in August to one count of conspiracy to violate US sanctions and money laundering for working for Oleg Deripaska, a wealthy Russian with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin,” reports CNN. "Judge Jennifer Rearden sentenced McGonigal to 50 months in prison, just below the statutory maximum of five years. The judge ordered McGonigal to surrender to prison on February 26."
According to the judge, McGonigal “repeatedly flouted and manipulated the sanctions regimes vital” to U.S. national security interests, and “the undeniable seriousness of this and the need to respect the law … compels a meaningful custodial sentence.” At the same time, the judge said his actions “do not all together stamp out” his distinguished career and the “profoundly important contributions” he made to the United States.
McGonigal expressed a “deep sense of remorse and sorrow" for his actions.
“I, more than anyone, know that I have committed a felony and as a former FBI special agent it causes me extreme mental, emotional, and physical pain – not to mention the shame I feel in embarrassing myself and the FBI, the organization I love and respect,” he told the judge for begging for a second chance.
As interesting as this story is, there's a key detail that the mainstream media isn't telling you. Nowhere in this report does it tell you that McGonigal played a key role in the Trump-Russia collusion investigation.
"During his time in the FBI, McGonigal participated in investigations of Russian oligarchs, including Deripaska. He was also one of the key figures who helped trigger special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into allegations that Trump's campaign team colluded with Russia to help the former president win the 2016 election," Newsweek reported back in January. "McGonigal, while serving as chief of the cybercrimes section at the FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, was among the first FBI officials to be made aware of allegations that George Papadopoulos, a 2016 campaign adviser for Trump, boasted that he knew Russians had political dirt on Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton."
This information led to the FBI launching "Crossfire Hurricane," which would examine whether Trump officials had been coordinating "wittingly or unwittingly" with Russia's attempts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
In September 2020, FBI Deputy Assistant Director Jonathan Moffa said, during Senate Judiciary Committee questioning, he received an email in July 2016 from McGonigal about Papadopoulos that "contained essentially that reporting, which then served as the basis for the opening of the case."
In 2017, the FBI's work was taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller as part of his expansive probe into the Trump campaign's ties with Russia amid the 2016 election.
Isn't that interesting? McGonigal played a role in the investigation of Trump for bogus Russian collusion but ended up colluding with Russia himself after leaving his role in the FBI.
In a post on X/Twitter, investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson revealed that in 2016, there was a bunch of "DOJ personnel hirings and firings surrounding the operation against @realDonaldTrump," and "McGonigal was one of the flurry of changes/ placements around the campaign."
"To me it looks like a group of folks were put in place in DC and NY to carry out the operation," she wrote.
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