Exclusive: Former top FBI official involved in Trump-Russia investigation under scrutiny by federal prosecutors for his own ties to Russia

By Mattathias Schwartz


Retired FBI agent Charlie McGonigal

A federal grand jury subpoenaed records of any "payments or gifts" that Charles McGonigal, the FBI's former head of counterintelligence in New York, received from foreign governments. Foreign Policy Association; iStock; Rebecca Zisser/Insider

A former high-level FBI agent who was involved in the investigation into the Trump campaign's contacts with Russia during the 2016 election has himself come under scrutiny by federal prosecutors for his ties with Russia and other foreign governments. 

Late last year, according to internal court documents obtained by Insider, US attorneys secretly convened a grand jury that examined the conduct of Charles McGonigal, the former head of counterintelligence at the FBI field office in New York City. The Justice Department declined to comment on what the grand jury was investigating or whether it remained ongoing. But a witness subpoena obtained by Insider seems to indicate that the government, in part, was looking into McGonigal's business dealings with a top aide to Oleg Deripaska, the billionaire Russian oligarch who was at the center of allegations that Russia colluded with the Trump campaign to interfere in the 2016 election.

The subpoena, issued in November, requests records relating to McGonigal and a shadowy consulting firm called Spectrum Risk Solutions. A week after the subpoena was issued, a Soviet-born immigrant named Sergey Shestakov said in a separate filing that McGonigal had helped him "facilitate" an introduction between Spectrum and Deripaska's aide. The filing also states that McGonigal helped introduce the aide to Kobre & Kim, a New York law firm that specializes in representing clients who are being investigated on suspicion of "fraud and misconduct." Shestakov, who has been identified on TV panels as a former Soviet foreign ministry official and former chief of staff to the Soviet ambassador to the United Nations, reported receiving $33,000 for the referrals.

While it wouldn't necessarily have been illegal for McGonigal to work on behalf of Deripaska, failing to disclose activities covered by the Foreign Agents Registration Act, such as lobbying and public relations, is punishable by a $250,000 fine and up to five years in prison. Deripaska was sanctioned by the Treasury Department in 2018 for acting as an agent for the Kremlin, and has been accused of ordering the murder of a businessman. "If McGonigal is mixed up in any way shape or form with Deripaska, that strikes me as unseemly, to put it politely," says Tim Weiner, the author of "Enemies: A History of the FBI."

An attachment to a grand jury subpoena
A witness subpoena obtained by Insider indicates information that federal prosecutors were seeking about former FBI official Charles McGonigal. Insider

Neither McGonigal nor those he is cited as dealing with responded to requests for comment from Insider. "This is not an area where we can provide a statement at this time," a representative for Kobre & Kim said.

It is not clear whether McGonigal is a target of the grand-jury investigation, or simply a subject whose activities are somehow related to it. And there is nothing in the court documents or elsewhere to suggest that McGonigal behaved inappropriately during the FBI's investigation of the Trump campaign. But the materials requested in the witness subpoena raise questions about whether a top FBI agent may have been tapping the connections he made during his years of public service for private gain — an all-too-common practice among Washington insiders. And whatever McGonigal's actions, the fact that he has been swept up in a grand-jury investigation is highly unusual. According to a former senior official at the Justice Department who asked not to be identified, prosecutors almost never consider charges against someone so high up in the FBI. "It's very rare that former FBI people at all, and certainly former senior FBI people, wind up as grand-jury targets," the official said.

The federal scrutiny of McGonigal is especially striking given his work at the FBI. Before his retirement in 2018, McGonigal led the WikiLeaks investigation into Chelsea Manning, busted Bill Clinton's national security advisor Sandy Berger for removing classified material from a National Archives reading room, and led the search for a Chinese mole inside the CIA. In 2016, when reports surfaced that Russia had hacked the email system of the Democratic National Committee, McGonigal was serving as chief of the cybercrimes section at FBI headquarters in Washington. In that capacity, he was one of the first officials to learn that a Trump campaign official had bragged that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton, sparking the investigation known as Operation Crossfire Hurricane. Later that year, FBI Director James Comey promoted McGonigal to oversee counterintelligence operations in New York. 

According to the witness subpoena, prosecutors are also looking into whether McGonigal has ties to the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as any "payments or gifts" he was provided by the governments of Kosovo, Montenegro, and Albania.

Edi Rama the Albanian prime minister in Brussels earlier this year

McGonigal used his official FBI letterhead to try and arrange a business meeting with Edi Rama, the prime minister of Albania. Thierry Monasse/Getty Images

Two sources told Insider that McGonigal was close to Edi Rama, who has served as the prime minister of Albania since 2013. According to an email reviewed by Insider, McGonigal used his official FBI email account to try to arrange a meeting between Rama and an American firm the prime minister was thinking about hiring for an anti-corruption initiative. In the end, the FBI didn't give McGonigal approval for the meeting, and it never took place.

A representative for Rama said the prime minister's relationship with McGonigal was "a totally private friendly relationship of no public interest. We have no idea about any grand jury and no US authority has ever contacted us about it. There have never been meetings with firms, gifts, payments, travel reimbursements before or after Mr. McGonigal left his job."

Since he left the FBI, McGonigal has continued to trade on his expertise in counterintelligence. In 2020, months after his reported assistance to Deripaska's aide, he appeared on a panel at the Atlantic Council, where he condemned the corruption of Russia's security services. "You are seeing an erosion in any rule of law as it relates to the FSB," he said. "It would be akin to having in the United States the FBI as a rogue element, operating at the behest of the highest bidder."

McGonigal's profile on LinkedIn says he is the senior vice president of "global security and life safety" at Brookfield Properties, a multibillion-dollar real-estate company in New York. But that information, apparently, is inaccurate. "Charlie McGonigal is no

longer with Brookfield," Andrew Brent, Brookfield's head of communications, told Insider. McGonigal left the company, he added, in early January — just as witnesses were scheduled to appear before the grand jury.


Mattathias Schwartz is a senior correspondent at Insider. 


SOURCE: https://www.businessinsider.com/exclusive-fbi-charles-mcgonigal-trump-russia-grand-jury-oleg-deripaska-2022-9

After Finding Shredded Ballots in the Dumpster Earlier Today – A Mysterious Fire Breaks Out at Maricopa County Official’s Farm



The Arizona Maricopa County election coverup continues.  These crooks are doing all they can to obstruct justice and tamper with evidence because they know they can get away with it.

The Arizona Maricopa County Board of Supervisors (MCBOS) on Wednesday loaded its 2020 Election ballots on a truck for delivery to the Arizona Senate.  After months of attempting to obtain access to the ballots, the Senate won a court case where the judge ordered the ballots to be produced to the Senate.  So immediately before being told when and where to deliver the ballots, the MCBOS loaded the ballots onto a truck even though the Senate had not yet asked for the ballots.  It is not believed that this move of the ballots was performed under the proper chain of custody.

The newspapers somehow got a hold of this story and claimed the Senate was not ready for the truckload after months of asking for the ballots.  They have consistently declared Joe Biden won the election and that there is no evidence of fraud.  AZCentral reported:   For two months, the Arizona Senate has been demanding that Maricopa County turn over the 2.1 million ballots cast in the November election.

Gary D. Barnett – Our Only Recourse is Civil Disobedience


henrymakow.com — Feb 23, 2021

After all this tyranny levied against this society, they now beg for crumbs from the very scum that has enslaved them. This collective and pathetic response can result in nothing less than mass enslavement.” – Gary Barnett

“Never comply, never submit, never close any business, never wear a mask, never isolate, and never believe a single word coming from this government or mainstream media. Disobey every state mandate en masse at every juncture or face sickness, slavery, poverty, starvation, loss of power access, total censorship and destruction of free speech, isolation, and the final destruction of this country. If you continue to comply and do nothing, the certain death of millions will occur.”

“Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless or corrupt. And a citizen who barters with such a state shares in its corruption and lawlessness.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi (2012). “The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work, and Ideas”, p.144, Vintage

Petitioning Government or Courts Will Never Result in Gaining Freedom: Only Mass Disobedience Can Prevail by Gary D. Barnett — (henrymakow.com)



We are now at the threshold of hell concerning
 our natural rights and freedom. This evil government and its controllers have destroyed our sacred lives through lies, deceit, theft, plotted divisive policies, torture, isolation, dystopian mandates, crippling orders by executive fiat, and murder.

This is not hidden; it is open and exposed, but the people have ignored the blatant nature of this conspiracy to take over humanity, and instead have as expected by their masters, acquiesced to every command given.

After all this tyranny levied against this society, they now beg for crumbs from the very scum that has enslaved them. This collective and pathetic response can result in nothing less than mass enslavement.


Attorney Explains how to Protect Against America’s Epidemic of Senior Medical Kidnappings

Introduced by Brian Shilhavy


As we have previously reported here at Health Impact News, the medical kidnapping of America’s elderly is a $273 BILLION industry.

Medical kidnapping of senior citizens occurs when a doctor, usually a psychiatrist, deems that the senior can no longer take care of themselves, and gets a judge to sign an order of “guardianship” or “conservatorship” to someone working for the State.

This state-appointed guardian then comes in and seizes all of their assets, and keeps them a prisoner locked up in a mental facility, most of the time against the wishes of their family members.

This epidemic in the U.S. is even a larger problem than child medical kidnapping, as state-appointed guardians currently have 1.3 million elderly people nationwide under their control. See:


Adults-Seniors-Medical-Kidnappingjpg
Images of adults who were medically kidnapped that Health Impact News has covered.

The few stories we have covered here at Health Impact News regarding seniors medically kidnapped represent just a tiny fraction of what is going on all across the U.S. every single day. (List of links below.)

Attorney Mark Nestmann has written an article that was published on LewRockwell.com giving people practical advice on how to oppose these adult medical kidnappings:

Attorney Explains how to Protect Against America’s Epidemic of Senior Medical Kidnappings

Portrait of Sad Senior couple
Protect Yourself from America’s Corrupt Guardianship System

by Mark Nestmann
LewRockwell.com

John Oliver is hardly a libertarian, but his Last Week Tonight show on HBO regularly highlights how US citizens are royally screwed by Uncle Sam and his minions. Over the years, he’s tackled subjects ranging from civil forfeiture to abuses in forensic science.

Recently, Oliver turned his attention to the guardianship system and how it can abuse senior citizens. Nearly 50 million Americans are 65 or older, and more than one million of them are under guardianship. Nearly 500,000 other disabled adults are part of the guardianship system as well.

State courts appoint guardians to make personal and financial decisions on behalf of adults found to be legally incompetent. A guardian is supposed to ensure that their “wards” have safe housing and help them negotiate a legal and medical system they may be incapable of dealing with on their own. According to an auditor for the Palm Beach County (Florida) guardianship fraud program, guardians control assets valued at $273 billion.

A ward loses nearly all civil rights once a judge approves a guardianship. The guardian has complete control over the ward’s personal and financial affairs. All of a ward’s money can be transferred to a guardian’s own account. A ward can also be forcibly relocated to any residential facility the guardian sees fit. Family members may lose the right to obtain information about the ward’s finances or medical conditions. Indeed, family members may even lose the right to visit the ward, because the guardian can forbid it.

As Judge Steve King of Tarrant County, Texas said on Oliver’s program: “Guardianship is a massive intrusion into a person’s life… they lose more rights than someone who goes to prison.

The powers that guardians wield are rife with abuse. In a series of cases from Las Vegas described last year in The New Yorker, a guardian in Las Vegas named April Parks targeted elderly individuals with substantial assets. Parks persuaded doctors to declare these individuals incompetent and place them under her guardianship. She would then acquire control over their assets and charge outrageously high fees to arrange for their care. When her wards’ estates were depleted to the point where they qualified for Medicaid, she would place them in nursing homes at government expense. In virtually all cases, this happened without a formal cognitive assessment to determine if the ward could continue living independently.

In the meantime, Parks, her lawyer, and her office manager were indicted for racketeering, theft, perjury, and exploitation of their wards. Their trial is scheduled to begin in September.

The horror story surrounding the North guardianship is not an isolated case. I’ve come across abusive guardianship cases in many other states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington. And while I suspect the vast majority of guardians exercise their authority ethically and with discretion, if only 1% of guardianship cases are abusive, that means 15,000 Americans are victims of this system.

Since it’s extremely difficult to escape from a guardianship once you’re in the system, plan ahead to avoid it. Getting your legal documents in order is the best way to avoid becoming the next victim. We insist that all Nestmann clients execute durable powers of attorney and health care proxies and record them in public records.

These documents should name someone you trust – generally your children or grandchildren – to step in if you become incapacitated. Whomever you name should not be someone in financial difficulty who might use your assets to satisfy their own financial obligations. The document should also be revocable unless a formal cognitive assessment performed by a licensed physician (ideally two licensed physicians) determines you are incompetent.

Another precaution is to build a safety mechanism into your planning. If the agent you name steps in to assist you if you’re incapacitated, your documents should require the agent meet periodically with an independent party – your accountant, for instance – to ensure your assets truly are being used for your benefit.

The guardianship system is one of the biggest rackets in the US today. Don’t be the next victim of this corrupt system.


Original source: Nestmann.com



About the Author Mark Nestmann is a journalist with more than 20 years of investigative experience and is a charter member of he Sovereign Society Council of Experts. He has authored over a dozen books and many additional reports on wealth preservation, privacy and offshore investing. Mark serves as president of his own international consulting firm, The Nestmann Group, Ltd.

The Nestmann Group provides international wealth preservation services for high-net worth individuals. Mark is an Associate Member of the American Bar Association (member of subcommittee on Foreign Activities of U.S. Taxpayers, Committee on Taxation) and member of the Society of Professional Journalists. In 2005, he was awarded a Masters of Laws (LL.M) degree in international tax law at the Vienna (Austria) University of Economics and Business Administration.