The arrest of former FBI counterintelligence official Charles McGonigal has touched off a slew of conspiracy theories from Democrats and their liberal allies in the media that he sabotaged the bureau’s fruitless Trump-Russia collusion probe.
Mr. McGonigal played a role in the FBI’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and Moscow’s possible ties to former President Trump’s campaign, a probe dubbed “Crossfire Hurricane.” Now he faces criminal charges that he colluded with Russia himself.
Mr. McGonigal has pleaded not guilty to the charges unveiled in separate indictments in New York and Washington. He is the highest-ranking FBI official ever charged with a crime.
Those charges have spurred wild claims from the left accusing Mr. McGonigal of throwing the 2016 election for Mr. Trump and then using his influence within the bureau to exonerate the former president and his allies of potential crimes.
There is no basis for either claim, but that hasn’t stopped Democrats from throwing it out in the public domain, echoed by left-wing media outlets.
“[McGonigal] may have knowledge of or have participated in political activities to damage then-candidate Hillary Clinton and help then-candidate Donald Trump,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island Democrat, wrote in a letter earlier this month to Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin demanded that Mr. Garland brief lawmakers about Mr. McGonigal’s involvement in the Trump-Russia probe.
In a separate letter to Mr. Garland, the Illinois Democrat notes that former FBI Director James Comey named Mr. McGonigal as a Special Agent-in-Charge just weeks ahead of the bureau’s October 2016 announcement that there was no clear link between Mr. Trump and Russia.
“The committee remains in the dark about the true extent to which Mr. McGonigal’s alleged misconduct may have impacted these highly sensitive matters,” Mr. Durbin wrote.
The theories also have been promoted by far-left podcaster Keith Olbermann and in liberal publications, including The New Republic.
Thomas J. Baker, a 33-year veteran of the bureau who also worked as an FBI instructor, called the Democrats’ allegations “a real stretch.” He said the claims underscore the FBI’s difficulty in shaking off allegations of political taint from both sides.
“Everything with the bureau has become so political that the public and politicians have lost confidence in it, willing to suspect anything from the bureau and believe the worst,” he said.
The conspiracy theory has gained traction among the left after Mr. McGonigal was criminally charged last month. He is accused of illegally taking money from a former Albanian intelligence official and Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch who has been sanctioned by the U.S.
Prosecutors say Mr. McGonigal broke the law by accepting money from Mr. Deripaska in exchange for investigating a rival oligarch and getting him off the sanctions list.
All told, Mr. McGonigal is charged with money laundering, violating U.S. sanctions and conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions.
The indictment unsealed in Washington charged that Mr. McGonigal, while working for the bureau, took $225,000 in secret cash payments from an individual who once served with Albanian intelligence. At the official’s request, Mr. McGonigal opened a criminal probe into foreign lobbying in which the former Albanian intelligence employee provided information as a confidential informant.
Prosecutors also have accused Mr. McGonigal of receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from Mr. Deripaska and forging signatures to keep those payments a secret.
It is those ties to Mr. Deripaska that have sparked theories that Mr. McGonigal was working at the behest of Moscow to elect and protect Mr. Trump. No evidence has ever emerged that Mr. Trump is a Russian asset, and special counsel Robert Mueller concluded in 2019 that his campaign did not collude with Russia.
ALLEGED SABOTAGE OF CLINTON CAMPAIGN
As the first part of the conspiracy theory goes, Mr. McGonigal would have been in a position to leak information about the laptop of disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner. He was being investigated for unrelated allegations of sexting with a minor, eventually pleading guilty and receiving a 21-month prison term.
Just weeks ahead of the 2016 election, Mr. Comey promoted Mr. McGonigal to the special agent in charge of the New York field office’s counterintelligence division.
Democrats say that would have put him in a position to leak information about Mr.Weiner’s laptop, which was discovered to contain classified information from Mrs. Clinton’s private email server. Mr. Weiner’s then-wife Huma Abedin, a top Clinton aide, had forwarded “hundreds of thousands of emails, some of which contained classified information” to him, according to Senate testimony from Mr. Comey.
The discovery of the classified materials prompted Mr. Comey to reopen the FBI probe into Mrs. Clinton just days ahead of the election, a development some Democrats say handed Mr. Trump a surprise victory.
In Mr. Whitehouse’s letter to the attorney general, he notes that Mr. McGonigal was in the New York office when Trump ally Rudolph W. Giuliani announced that “big surprises” about Mrs. Clinton would be forthcoming and hinted it came from the FBI’s New York field office.
However, an FBI press release dated Oct. 4, 2016, raises some questions about whether Mr. McGonigal was even in the New York field office at the time of Mr. Giuliani’s announcement.
The press release says Mr. McGonigal, who was then working in the bureau’s Washington field office, would assume his New York role at the end of October. That could have put him in New York after Mr. Giuliani made his claims in October 2016.
In 2021, the Justice Department’s inspector general said it did not find any evidence that the FBI agents had improperly tipped off Mr. Guiliani about the Clinton investigation.
CROSSFIRE HURRICANE ROLE
The second part of the conspiracy theory alleges that Mr. McGonigal then put his thumb on the scales of the Crossfire Hurricane probe to keep Mr. Trump and his allies in the clear.
Mr. McGonigal was involved in the Crossfire Hurricane probe, including forwarding a tip in the case and played a role in the investigation into Trump campaign aide Carter Page, according to a report by the Justice Department’s inspector general. A top Justice Department official told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020 that Mr. McGonigal was instrumental in launching the Russia collusion probe.
Mr. Deripaska, who was paying Mr. McGonigal, also had a tight relationship with Paul Manafort, who briefly served as Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman.
Mr. Manafort allegedly passed secret campaign information to Konstantin Kilimnik, a suspected Russian intelligence officer who worked for Mr. Deripaska.
A 2020 Senate Intelligence Committee report concluded that between 2004 and 2009, Mr. Manafort implemented influence operations in Ukraine on behalf of Mr. Deripaska.
Mr. Mueller in 2018 indicted both Mr. Manfort and Mr. Kilimnik on conspiracy charges, witness tampering and obstruction of justice. Mr. Manafort was convicted of financial crimes and Mr. Kilimnik remains just out of the reach of U.S. law enforcement.
Given his role in the Crossfire Hurricane probe, Mr. McGonigal would have been in a position to sabotage at least a portion of the probe with disinformation, Democrats believe.
“Mr. McGonigal oversaw many sensitive counterintelligence investigations, including investigations involving individuals he has now been accused of working to benefit. Mr. Deripaska was central to Paul Manafort’s ties to Russia,” Mr. Durbin wrote to Mr. Garland.
However, no public evidence has emerged that Mr. McGonigal worked to undermine the Russian collusion probe. A comprehensive report on the Russia probe released by the Justice Department inspector general barely mentions him.
Republicans are quick to point out that Mr. Deripaska also has ties with Christopher Steele, the former British spy who authored an unverified, salacious dossier alleging Mr. Trump conspired with Russia to win the 2016 election. Most of Mr. Steele’s dossier has since been debunked.
It’s also unclear why Mr. McGonigal would work to undermine an investigation he was key in opening. In September 2020, FBI Deputy Assistant Director Johnathan Moffa testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that he received an email from Mr. McGonigal about former campaign figure George Papadopolous that “served as basis for the opening of the case.”
The probe was ultimately handed off to Mr. Mueller’s team in 2017, and Mr. McGonigal left the FBI in 2018, before the probe was finished.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.