Allegations of impropriety and law-breaking at the FBI continue to mount, exacerbating Americans’ worries that the agency that for so long was trusted to stop criminals has instead become a breeding ground for them.
On Thursday, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), along with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, began an investigation into a former FBI special agent who had led the bureau’s New York counterintelligence arm and who was recently indicted on charges relating to “collusion” with a Russian oligarch.
In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, the two congressmen asserted that the Judiciary Committee is “continuing to investigate allegations of politicization and bias,” declaring that the indictment of the former agent, Charles McGonigal, serves as a reminder “yet again about the seemingly pervasive problems within the FBI.”
Jordan and Gaetz want Wray to hold a briefing for members of the committee to go over the FBI’s investigation of McGonigal, along with “pertinent FBI procedures and protocols” and the bureau’s assessment of national security risks created by McGonigal’s ties to the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
Last week, McGonigal — who retired in 2018 — was indicted on nine counts, among them one for allegedly falsifying records and documents. If convicted, the maximum sentence for the crime is 20 years in prison.
Also among the nine counts is a charge for making false statements. Not only does McGonigal face prison time, but potential financial penalties as well.
McGonigal is accused of violating U.S. sanctions for allegedly taking money from, working for, and laundering money for Deripaska, who has ties to Vladimir Putin.
In their letter, Gaetz and Jordan wrote that “McGonigal allegedly took these actions after previously supervising investigations into Deripaska and his Russian rivals,” even while, as Special Agent in Charge of the Counterintelligence Division, he “supervised and participated in investigations of Russian oligarchs, including Deripaska.”
“McGonigal also ‘received and reviewed a then-classified list of Russian oligarchs with close ties to the Kremlin who would be considered for sanctions to be imposed as a result of Russia’s 2014 conflict with Ukraine,’” the lawmakers continued. “This misconduct further erodes public confidence in the FBI’s conduct and law-enforcement actions.”
They also pointed out that Deripaska worked with Christopher Steele — who authored the infamous and discredited dossier that was used to secure FISA warrants against former Trump aide Carter Page. This led to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation to determine whether the Trump team was guilty of colluding with Russia.
The New York Times reports that during his 22 years of service at the FBI, McGonigal “was so trusted that he was tapped to run the investigation into a devastating breach that led to the imprisonment, execution or disappearance of more than a dozen Central Intelligence Agency informants in China, one of the F.B.I.’s most sensitive assignments.”
In detailing McGonigal’s alleged crimes according to the unsealed indictment, the outlet related that “over two years, Mr. McGonigal submitted false financial disclosures to the F.B.I. The forms omitted his acceptance of payment from a New Jersey businessman who was a former employee of an Albanian intelligence agency as well as free international travel. Prosecutors said Mr. McGonigal also lied about his travel destinations and interactions with foreigners on forms he was required to complete and took actions that appear to have conflicted with his government duties.”
Jordan told Wray he wants the member-level briefing to take place by February 16. He also expects requested documents to be handed over to his panel by that date.
Jordan and the congressional GOP are also using their new House majority to get to the bottom of other questions regarding the FBI and Justice Department, such as the bureau’s raid of Mar-a-Lago and the department’s labeling of parents at school board meetings as “domestic terrorists.”
Jordan warned that if Wray does not honor his requests, he “may be forced to resort to compulsory process to obtain the material we require.”
On Wednesday, the Judiciary Committee’s new Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government held a private interview with former FBI official Jill Sanborn, who stands accused of being part of a group of biased FBI employees who used their power to help Democrats and hurt Republicans.
As reported by CNN:
In a report released last year, Jordan claimed Sanborn and other FBI officials pressured agents to manipulate government statistics about domestic terrorism, to falsely bolster President Joe Biden’s rhetoric about the rise of right-wing extremism. Jordan’s report claimed an anonymous FBI whistleblower implicated Sanborn in efforts to “manufacture” cases to “feign a national problem.”
One of the FBI whistleblowers cited in Jordan’s report claimed that the bureau “has not followed regular procedure” when opening criminal cases against January 6, 2021, US Capitol rioters.
Of course, it’s not surprising that there’s corruption within the ranks when it’s coming all the way from the top — in this case, from the Oval Office itself.
As The New American reports, someone in the Biden administration ordered the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) not to publish information about the discovery of papers at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. Is Biden trying to keep this scandal from exploding?
It’s no wonder the Biden-aligned, Soros-linked dark money group known as the Congressional Integrity Project is giving the White House opposition research on the Republicans (including Jim Jordan) who are spearheading the investigation into the Biden family — along with polling data and ads to use against these Republicans.
