Arrest of FBI Counter-Intel Officer Isn't Bad for FBI, Could Be Really Bad for Trump
Today, the FBI arrested the former chief Counter-Intelligence for the NYC Office. from CNBC:
The former top FBI agent in New York for counterintelligence was arrested with an ex-Russian diplomat and charged with violating U.S. sanctions on Russia after he left the FBI by trying to help the oligarch Oleg Deripaska get off the sanctions list, federal prosecutors said Monday.
Moreover:
While at the FBI, McGonigal previously had investigated Deripaska, who made his fortune in Russia’s aluminum industry. FBI agents in October 2021 raided proprieties in New York and Washington that were linked to Deripaska.
Deripaska: Better Link to Format Here
McGonigal resigned from the FBI in 2018.
And here are some of the typical MAGA responses who haven’t really thought through the situation. They believe it evidences the FBI is corrupt. McGonigal may be corrupt (probably is), but timing matters. Someone may be corrupt at a certain “time,” and that time may make a bigger difference than grilling a steak.
Anyway, responses, three out of 30,000.
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We don’t need any more to establish the problem, and when I say “problem,” I mean to establish that conservatives are entirely misreading the Charles McGonigal issue.
Again, McGonigal retired in 2018, and remember, he and his partner are charged with violating Russian sanctions with a well-known Russian oligarch. Ask yourself who is and was against Russian sanctions and tried to have them lifted in his first two weeks in office. OH, and also don’t forget the tight link between Deripaska and Putin. From The Guardian:
He is said to be Vladimir Putin’s favourite industrialist, with deep links among the British and Russian establishments. Unlike some of his countrymen, Oleg Deripaska has cultivated influence quietly, preferring to stay out of the spotlight.
And so one might ask themselves who also has a tight relationship with Putin. Yes, Donald Trump.
So we have an agent that is supposedly head of the counter-intelligence division in NYC and head of the Trump-Russian probe (Yes, there was a middle man), who was also helping a tight Putin pal launder money through the United States.
In 2018.
So the FBI and DOJ - under Trump - didn’t find this “problem” for Trump’s entire term, even though Trump was fixated on the Russian probe into his ties with Russia. Nor did they find it with agents working under this guy, agents with evidence that had to be fairly easy to obtain.
And yet two years into the Biden term, he is arrested. Let’s look at the operative sentence from CNBC again: in connection with accepting $225,000 in cash — while working at the FBI.
Bill Barr and the head of the FBI had two years to arrest and indict this guy and apparently “didn’t find” the crime. Is it because finding the crime would show that someone very close to Putin was illegally violating American sanctions? Or was it just a payment to look the other way when much more money was moved into the United States?
So while conservatives are partying that the FBI “looks bad,” it was Merrick Garland under Biden who made the arrest. Additionally, this is sort of the inverse of what MAGAs believe. The head of the Trump probe accepted money that was traced back to Deripaska, while the FBI didn’t find anything on Trump.
So, someone possibly arranged for McGonigal to look the other way while a sanctioned transaction got through. The MAGA mind: The guy in charge of the Russian probe was dealing with Russia. You can’t make this up! “Yes, you can - quite easily. Trump tells Barr, “Don’t go there.” And Trump-aligned FBI agents “didn’t go there.” To the MAGAs it is just “FBI bad” and, of course, the ridiculous outrage that the FBI investigated Trump.
What if McGonigal spills the beans? Suddenly, he will become the guy who can’t be trusted.
The FBI under Trump never made an arrest or “found anything” on Trump. That was Mueller. But Merrick Garland is at least close. What one cannot make up is the simplicity with which the MAGAs view the world.
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jmiciak@yahoo.com, @JasonMiciak
Still begging for pledges and payments for an entire year, starting in 8 days… Please?
We deserve to be on the beach because we just rewired the entire FBI arrest in its proper context. You won’t see that everywhere: