Merrick Garland to face DOJ oversight grilling for first time from new Congress | Senators to grill Garland about rogue FBI agent involved in Trump-Russia investigation
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray to seek more information about the impact Charles McGonigal’s alleged misconduct, which was recently revealed in unsealed indictments, may have had on highly sensitive counterintelligence and criminal investigations.
On January 23, 2023, the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Southern District of New York (USAO-SDNY) and for the District of Columbia (USAO-DDC) unsealed indictments against Mr. McGonigal, a former high-level counterintelligence official at the FBI. The USAO-SDNY indictment alleges that Mr. McGonigal conspired to violate sanctions against Russia by agreeing to provide services to Oleg Deripaska, a sanctioned Russian oligarch. The USAO-DDC indictment alleges that Mr. McGonigal concealed his receipt of $225,000 cash from a former Albanian intelligence agency employee. Both indictments include alleged conduct that occurred while Mr. McGonigal served as the Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of FBI’s Counterintelligence Division in the New York Field Office from 2016 to 2018 and after his retirement.
“These allegations are extremely disturbing and raise concerns about the potential impact this misconduct may have had on the FBI’s counterintelligence matters and criminal investigations,” Durbin wrote. “As a SAC for the New York Field Office, 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, and the FBI New York Field Office used the former Albanian intelligence agency employee as a confidential human source in a criminal investigation. Moreover, then-FBI Director James Comey named Mr. McGonigal SAC just weeks prior to the FBI’s October 2016 announcement that it saw no clear link between then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russia.”
Durbin continued, “The Committee remains in the dark on the true extent to which Mr. McGonigal’s alleged misconduct may have impacted these highly sensitive matters, including whether he compromised sensitive sources, methods, and analysis. Whether his alleged misconduct materially impacted the outcome of any investigations or further compromised our national security also remains unknown at this time.”
Durbin concluded his letter with an ask to schedule a briefing and for the FBI and Department of Justice to respond to a series of questions no later than February 15, 2023.
Full text of today’s letter is available here and below:
February 2, 2023
Dear Attorney General Garland and Director Wray:
I write to express our concerns with the unsealed indictment against Charles McGonigal and to seek more information about the impact his alleged misconduct may have had on highly sensitive counterintelligence and criminal investigations.
On January 23, 2023, the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Southern District of New York (USAO-SDNY) and for the District of Columbia (USAO-DDC) unsealed indictments against Mr. McGonigal, a former high-level counterintelligence official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The USAO-SDNY indictment alleges that Mr. McGonigal conspired to violate sanctions against Russia by agreeing to provide services to Oleg Deripaska, a sanctioned Russian oligarch. The USAO-DDC indictment alleges that he concealed his receipt of $225,000 cash from a former Albanian intelligence agency employee. Both indictments include alleged conduct that occurred while Mr. McGonigal served as the Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of FBI’s Counterintelligence Division in the New York Field Office from 2016 to 2018 and after his retirement.
These allegations are extremely disturbing and raise concerns about the potential impact this misconduct may have had on the FBI’s counterintelligence matters and criminal investigations. As a SAC for the New York Field Office, 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, and the FBI New York Field Office used the former Albanian intelligence agency employee as a confidential human source in a criminal investigation. Moreover, then-FBI Director James Comey named Mr. McGonigal SAC just weeks prior to the FBI’s October 2016 announcement that it saw no clear link between then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russia. The Committee remains in the dark on the true extent to which Mr. McGonigal’s alleged misconduct may have impacted these highly sensitive matters, including whether he compromised sensitive sources, methods, and analysis. Whether his alleged misconduct materially impacted the outcome of any investigations or further compromised our national security also remains unknown at this time.
It is important to ensure that the American people have the utmost confidence in the important work of the FBI. Accordingly, I ask that you contact my staff to schedule a briefing and respond to the following questions no later than February 15, 2023:
- How many counterintelligence investigations did Mr. McGonigal oversee as SAC?
- Of counterintelligence investigations that Mr. McGonigal oversaw as SAC, how many involved or are related to individuals he is now accused of working with or to benefit?
- What role, if any, did Mr. McGonigal play in the FBI Crossfire Hurricane investigation into links between Russian officials and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign?
- What role, if any, did Mr. McGonigal play in Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election?
- Has the FBI identified any compromises to evidence, analysis, sources, or methods in these investigations that potentially arose from Mr. McGonigal’s conduct?
- What policies and procedures does the Justice Department and FBI have in place to detect potential misuse of public office and breaches of public trust by current and former officials?
- Why did these policies and procedures fail to alert Justice Department and FBI officials to Mr. McGonigal’s alleged conduct while he served as SAC?
Thank you for your prompt attention to this important matter.
Sincerely,
-30-
Q: Did the FBI wait until after the 2016 election to review the Hillary Clinton emails found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop?
A: No. A viral story misinterprets an FBI document and ignores widely reported facts.
FULL ANSWER
Citing a recently released FBI document, a viral story misleads readers by claiming that the emails of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that were found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop weren’t “reviewed” by an FBI investigator until after the 2016 election.
The FB News Cycle story claims that the document proves that now-fired FBI agent Peter Strzok “buried evidence of HRC’s corruption.”
But the premise is false: The emails were reviewed days before the election.
Some background:
- On July 5, 2016, former FBI Director James Comey announced that the bureau would recommend that charges not be filed in the probe into Clinton’s use of a private email system while heading the State Department.
- On Sept. 26, 2016, the FBI executed a search warrant on former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s iPhone, iPad and laptop computer, and discovered 141,000 emails on the laptop that were potentially relevant to the FBI’s closed investigation of Clinton. Longtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin was married to Weiner at the time. (Abedin’s lawyer said early this year the couple was privately finalizing their divorce.) Weiner was being separately investigated for “sexting” with an underage teenage girl.
- A month later, on Oct. 28, 2016, Comey told lawmakers in a letter that the FBI had “learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation” and that investigators would “review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information.”
- On Nov. 6, 2016, Comey told Congress in a follow-up memo that the FBI had “reviewed all of the communications that were to or from Hillary Clinton while she was Secretary of State” and that officials “have not changed our conclusions.”
- The election took place Nov. 8, 2016.
The Aug. 4 story on fbnewscycle.com ignores these facts and claims that the emails found on Weiner’s laptop weren’t eyed until after the election. The post gained popularity on the Facebook page “Donald Trump is Our President,” from which it was reshared by thousands.
“While the NYPD was conducting a forensic analysis of the Weiner/Abedin laptop, it was discovered that the hard drive contained 350,000 of Hillary Clinton’s emails and 344,000 Blackberry communications,” the story says. “Here’s what you were never told by the HRC-BHO protective media. These were never reviewed by the FBI investigators assigned to help lead agent Peter Strzok. Nor, was any attempt made to analyze the newly discovered files until after the election was over.”
As evidence, the website includes an FBI document dated Nov. 9, 2016 — the day after the election — that indicates Strzok had requested that a copy of a laptop’s hard drive be reviewed for “evidence of intrusion.” The document was among a batch released earlier this month to the conservative group Judicial Watch.
But that document isn’t evidence that the emails weren’t reviewed before the Nov. 8 election.
A June 2018 report by the Justice Department Office of the Inspector General, which conducted a review of the bureau’s investigation, indicates that the FBI obtained a search warrant for the laptop on Oct. 30, 2016 — this time to look for information related to the Clinton email investigation — and that multiple investigators were involved in the review.
“The Midyear team flagged all potentially work-related emails encountered during the review process and compared those to emails that they had previously reviewed in other datasets,” the report states, referring to the investigation by its “Midyear” code name. “Any work-related emails that were unique, meaning that they did not appear in any other dataset, were individually reviewed by the Lead Analyst, Strzok, and FBI Attorney 1 for evidentiary value.”
The report indicates the review of the emails was completed Nov. 6, 2016, before Comey sent his second letter to Congress. Still, it says, the lead analyst on the case told the inspector general’s office that even after that review, the FBI needed to do more investigative work.
“The Lead Analyst told us that the further investigative steps needed to complete the investigation included at least a ‘malware analysis’ to examine the laptop for intrusion and a re-interview of Abedin,” the report states.
The analyst said that such an analysis was needed to know if the laptop was “compromised by anyone” or if a “foreign power obtained” classified material.
So, while further examination took place after the election, it’s false to claim, as fbnewscycle.com did, that Strzok’s intrusion analysis request “shows he sat on the laptop for more than 6 weeks – until the election was over!”
The FBI’s handling of the emails on Weiner’s laptop has indeed fueled criticism about why the agency chose to wait weeks before taking action on the late-September discovery. The inspector general’s report said it found no “consistent or persuasive explanation” for the delay, but said it gathered no evidence that the laptop was “deliberately placed on the back-burner by others in the FBI to protect Clinton.”
Clinton, for her part, has argued that the timing of the announcement to review the emails did quite the opposite.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk false stories shared on the social media network.
Sources
“A Review of Various Actions by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice in Advance of the 2016 Election.” Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice. June 2018.
Comey, James. Director, FBI. Letter to Congress. 28 Oct 2016.
Comey, James. Director, FBI. Letter to Congress. 6 Nov 2016.
“Statement by FBI Director James B. Comey on the Investigation of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s Use of a Personal E-Mail System.” Press release, FBI. 5 Jul 2016.
Strzok, Peter. Agent, FBI. “Case Support Request.” 9 Nov 2016.
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