The U.S. Department of Justice has reopened a case against a former top FBI counterspy. Charles McGonigal was Special Agent in Charge of Counterintelligence at the New York field office. He left the FBI in 2018, joined the massive Brookfield asset management fund as a vice president for global security, and was arrested and convicted in 2023.
But not for espionage. McGonigal quickly pled guilty to corruption-related crimes. He is serving six-and-a-half years in federal prison.
His prosecution and admission seem suspiciously tidy.
McGonigal was part of the FBI’s discredited CROSSFIRE HURRICANE “counterintelligence” operation led by his boss, Peter Strzok, against Donald Trump and his supporters in 2016.
As the former senior spy-hunter at the Bureau’s largest field office, McGonigal barely defended himself from charges relating to illegally accepting money from Albanian businessmen tied to that tiny country’s intelligence service, and for ties to a sanctioned Russian oligarch.
He received a light sentence and $40,000 fine.
Something feels off. To the Russian or Chinese intelligence services, someone in McGonigal’s position would be a prime intelligence mark — the man in charge of tracking them.
Someone with his double life and excessive lifestyle makes a ripe target. It stretches credulity to think that Albanian intelligence got to McGonigal instead of Putin’s chekists.
Hellbound and Down 