After retiring from the FBI in 2018, McGonigal is accused of illegally working for one of Russia’s most notorious oligarchs, Oleg Deripaska, who was linked to the FBI’s Russia probe thanks to his ties to former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.
The insular world of FBI counterintelligence agents was rocked last month when one of their own, Charles F. McGonigal, formerly the FBI’s top counterintelligence official in New York, was indicted for allegedly selling access to Russian and Albanian officials in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash.
Hanssen spied for Russia for years while holding high-level counterintelligence positions, doing dead drops to provide Russia with information that helped identify US spies and espionage techniques. There is no suggestion in the public indictment, either, that McGonigal committed espionage. Current and former FBI officials familiar with McGonigal and his work say they believe McGonigal – a former accountant – simply got “greedy.