Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show. My name
Speaker 1: is Matt, my name is Nolan. They called me Ben.
Speaker 1: We're joined as always with our superproducer, all mission controlled
Speaker 1: decond Most importantly, you are you. You are here, and
Speaker 1: that makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is about power. It's often said power corrupts,
Speaker 1: and you know, we've all seen that happen in one
Speaker 1: way or another. You might remember a kid who got
Speaker 1: a little despotic when they became hall monitor, or kept
Speaker 1: an eye on the class while the teacher was gone.
Speaker 1: There are no shortages the stories of local politicians who
Speaker 1: dipped her finger into the sugar jar of public coffers.
Speaker 1: But what happens when the people at the very top
Speaker 1: reaches of law enforcement start breaking the same laws, these
Speaker 1: specific same laws they are meant to enforce. That's our
Speaker 1: story today, the still unfolding tale of Charles McGonagall Charlie
Speaker 1: to his friends. For twenty two years he served the
Speaker 1: FBI and according to authorities, he began serving other masters
Speaker 1: somewhere along the way. Here are the facts. Yes, we
Speaker 1: first learned about old Charlie here when we did a
Speaker 1: quick piece of strange news on him, because I think
Speaker 1: it was it's something's been going up for a long time.
Speaker 1: But it made the news because he was formally being
Speaker 1: charged with some stuff and not good stuff. No, he
Speaker 1: wasn't charged with being like the dopest guy at the
Speaker 1: roller skating rink, not this time. That was years ago.
Speaker 1: That was in his past. It's true. So what was
Speaker 1: interesting about this case specifically Charlie Charles McGonagall. Not a
Speaker 1: whole lot of information out there in the public sphere,
Speaker 1: but we do we can't ascertain some basics. He was
Speaker 1: born in the late sixties, in nineteen sixty eight, based
Speaker 1: on what we found in Ohio, and he went to
Speaker 1: Johns Hopkins, a prestigious university, where he obtained a bachelor's
Speaker 1: degree in business administration in nineteen ninety. It's funny, I
Speaker 1: always think of Johns Hopkins for their medical school, but
Speaker 1: they also have other disciplines represented there, and business is
Speaker 1: one of them. He got that in nineteen ninety. Then
Speaker 1: in November of nineteen eighty four, he got married to
Speaker 1: Pamela Fox McGonagall. Cool middle name, yeah, total Fox. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like that, right, that's a cool name. But right now,
Speaker 1: as we record, this guy is not in jail. He's
Speaker 1: not in prison as we record on March third, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, he is living in Chevy Chase, Maryland. He
Speaker 1: joined the FBI in nineties, and he also continued to
Speaker 1: pursue his education. In twenty twelve, he got a master's degree,
Speaker 1: also from Johns Hopkins. As you mentioned, Nole, and this
Speaker 1: might seem weird to people, but it's not super unusual
Speaker 1: in a ton of careers, Folks will commit themselves to
Speaker 1: a brutal schedule to pursue higher education because it it
Speaker 1: furthers your job prospects. Right, And in some reaches of government,
Speaker 1: there's actually a tiered system of base pay that rises
Speaker 1: depending on your level of education. So you know, your
Speaker 1: schedule sucks for a while, but it is a good
Speaker 1: investment in your time, especially if you're ambitious, and as
Speaker 1: will come to find, Charlie is nothing if not ambitious.
Speaker 1: May I quickly derail us and ask a silly question,
Speaker 1: the chicken or the egg question? What came first? Chevy
Speaker 1: Chase the actor or chevy Chase Maryland. Chevy Chase Maryland.
Speaker 1: Do you think it was chevy Chase named after the
Speaker 1: city or is it it's a coincidence? Is the stage name?
Speaker 1: Is Chevy's name actually Chevy or was that as a
Speaker 1: nicknames as a result of this place? And did he
Speaker 1: have any association with him? His real name is Cornelius
Speaker 1: Crane Chase. Okay, one would imagine that it was a
Speaker 1: it was a tip of the hat to old chevy
Speaker 1: Chase Maryland. Sorry, it's funny. I only first found out
Speaker 1: about chevy Chase Maryland from fallout to the one that
Speaker 1: takes place in the DC area, and I thought it
Speaker 1: was made up. I thought it was some kind of
Speaker 1: jokey reference to chevy Chase the actor, But not the case.
Speaker 1: If any of you fellow conspiracy realists were wondering the
Speaker 1: same thing, Yeah, it's a real place. And as our
Speaker 1: pal Paul just said, I don't know if you'll put
Speaker 1: down the air Paul. Paul pointed out that chevy Chase
Speaker 1: Maryland is a pretty prestigious and wealthy area of Maryland,
Speaker 1: so this guy is living in a good neighborhood as
Speaker 1: we speak. He in his career over twenty two years.
Speaker 1: He went on to serve in various parts of the FBI.
Speaker 1: He was always moving up New York, Cleveland, DC, Baltimore.
Speaker 1: In twenty sixteen, there was quite a coupe. Toward the
Speaker 1: end of his career, he was named the Special Agent
Speaker 1: in charge of the Counterintelligence Division for the New York
Speaker 1: Field Office. Yes, again, we know only an outfit like
Speaker 1: the US government would make a word like counterintelligence and
Speaker 1: take it seriously without realizing that if you if you
Speaker 1: don't know what they do, it sounds like they're the
Speaker 1: dumb squad. They're very much not. They're very much not.
Speaker 1: They're not dumb people. Well, let's talk about what counterintelligence
Speaker 1: means for the FBI. So we've talked a lot in
Speaker 1: the past about how the CIA is the intelligence part
Speaker 1: of the United States that operates outside of the US.
Speaker 1: So they're the ones that actually put out feelers and
Speaker 1: will go into another country conduct intelligence in that country,
Speaker 1: or you know, whether that is intelligence or counterintelligence in
Speaker 1: that country. The FBI handles all the stuff that happens
Speaker 1: inside the territory. So FBI counterintelligence is basically keeping a
Speaker 1: lookout for any other spies that may come into the US,
Speaker 1: either with diplomatic cover. That's often what happens, especially in
Speaker 1: New York because of the UN and they just try
Speaker 1: and see, oh, is that diplomat actually a diplomat or
Speaker 1: is that some KGB agent or something like that. But
Speaker 1: like the etymology of the term intelligence even is a
Speaker 1: little veiled, right, because I mean intelligence, you know, in
Speaker 1: the way we know it Webster's wise means you know,
Speaker 1: smarts means the ability to ascertain information and some level
Speaker 1: of deductive reasoning power. But in this case, intelligence refers
Speaker 1: to gathering information, right, So there's a there's a connection.
Speaker 1: But counterintelligence is sort of like an opposition and all
Speaker 1: equal and opposite reaction to those gathering intelligence on you. Right,
Speaker 1: you just gotta take it literally the right. This is
Speaker 1: um I guess the way I would put it for
Speaker 1: an analogy is the FBI and a counterintelligence capability is
Speaker 1: largely the goalie of a big, big soccer game and
Speaker 1: the field is the rest of the world. So they're
Speaker 1: trying to keep the balls from getting into the net
Speaker 1: that is US activity, but because there has all the
Speaker 1: important stuff in it, right, But this net also bites
Speaker 1: back because part of a counterintelligence operation, even though it
Speaker 1: could it's largely defensive. Part of it is the ability
Speaker 1: to not just identify foreign actors, but potentially turn them
Speaker 1: towards your own purposes. Everybody does this. It's a glass planet.
Speaker 1: There are no real quote unquote good guys, but there
Speaker 1: are rules. And that's where Charlie goes wrong. So he
Speaker 1: works on some high level, high sensitivity stuff, the kind
Speaker 1: of thing that you don't hear about until it's sewed
Speaker 1: up right until the doj is is pretty much happy
Speaker 1: and things. They have a case. So for two years
Speaker 1: he's a big wheel in the New York Field Office.
Speaker 1: He's in charge of counterintelligence in one of the most
Speaker 1: sensitive intelligence areas in the country. When he retires, he's
Speaker 1: got a great, distinguished career. Like a lot of people
Speaker 1: with his level of expertise, he goes to the private sector. Again,
Speaker 1: this is neither illegal nor necessarily unusual. We see this
Speaker 1: where you make more money, right, you make more money.
Speaker 1: We see as a natural progression of careers. Now, is
Speaker 1: it a good thing that that revolving door exists? I
Speaker 1: would say no, but it is definitely a door that
Speaker 1: people use often we should point out that he retired
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen, just so he only he only spent
Speaker 1: around two years as that special Asian in charge of counterintelligence,
Speaker 1: right right, And that was a culmination of his career.
Speaker 1: And let's take a second to say, you know, first,
Speaker 1: he was he was very successful. He ended up involved
Speaker 1: with a lot of high profile cases, some of which
Speaker 1: we reported on in this show in the past wiki leaks.
Speaker 1: Let's see he busted. There were some stories that were
Speaker 1: really big at the time that a lot of people
Speaker 1: forgot about, like he, uh, he busted the Clinton administration's
Speaker 1: National Security advisor, Sandy Berger for stealing classified documents. And
Speaker 1: then this is very he did like spy movie stuff,
Speaker 1: like he led the search for a Chinese mole inside
Speaker 1: the CIA. He was he was doing he was doing
Speaker 1: his job, and he was he could be really great
Speaker 1: to work with if he considered you a peer or
Speaker 1: a superior. He knew when to lay on the butter.
Speaker 1: But he was also kind of a lot of colleagues
Speaker 1: we found quoted anonymously said he was kind of a jerk.
Speaker 1: If he thought he was you were working for him,
Speaker 1: which tracks it makes me biased because I have no
Speaker 1: respect for people like that. If you can't be nice
Speaker 1: to a waiter, then you're not worth by time. I
Speaker 1: feel the exact same way. Yeah, And you can really
Speaker 1: tell a lot about a person's character about how they
Speaker 1: treat those working under them, because you know, we all
Speaker 1: three of us have managed people and headed up teams,
Speaker 1: and I think we all every single step of the
Speaker 1: way try to be self aware and treat people with respect.
Speaker 1: And that's also how you get the best work out
Speaker 1: of people, and not even as a flex or as
Speaker 1: some sort of manipulation. It's just facts. And typically if
Speaker 1: you treat people like crap, they're gonna rebel against you,
Speaker 1: whether outwardly or you know, under the table. Kind of
Speaker 1: the way he's described reminds me a lot of that
Speaker 1: fairly new television show called The Recruit that's based around
Speaker 1: an FBI agent who's really an attorney but functioning as
Speaker 1: as an agent, and it reminds me of the way
Speaker 1: that FBI in general is described. The work atmosphere at
Speaker 1: that outfit, basically, if that resenting successes of other people,
Speaker 1: making sure that you're the one who gets the credit
Speaker 1: if somebody under you, you know, does something, and again
Speaker 1: it's just a fictionalized television show. But it just really
Speaker 1: reminds me of the way it's depicted in it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's talk about those descriptions. So one former colleague lies,
Speaker 1: colleagues are very careful to be anonymous because of the
Speaker 1: way making public statements works. One colleague said that McGonagall
Speaker 1: was quote an egotistical narcissist who frequently screamed at subordinates
Speaker 1: and resented the success of others, another unfortunately common thing
Speaker 1: in many industries. And what is more, this is more
Speaker 1: dangerous though, because this is the FBI. They also say
Speaker 1: that McGonagall seemed to have or could have used his
Speaker 1: professional influence to further his political ideology, which is something
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to do in the FBI. In case
Speaker 1: anyone was wondering, there's a great article at a place
Speaker 1: called spy Talk by Jeff Stein who points out that
Speaker 1: McGonagall is suspected of being part of this unofficial clique
Speaker 1: in the FBI New York office who wanted to prevent
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton from winning the twenty sixteen presidential election, and
Speaker 1: that he was probably part of this group that pressure
Speaker 1: the FBI Director James Comey to investigate you know, the
Speaker 1: Clinton emails just a few days before the election officially
Speaker 1: kicked off, which was a huge deal. Which was a
Speaker 1: huge deal, not only the fact of what it was,
Speaker 1: but also that it was happening at that time. I
Speaker 1: remember how much that affected my thinking in twenty sixteen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and at the same time, you know, obviously there were
Speaker 1: other forces out who wanted to influence the election in
Speaker 1: an undue way, Russia being the primary right. And then
Speaker 1: there's still there's still questions about Wiki leaks and how
Speaker 1: they decided to release what they did and when. But
Speaker 1: you know how, let's stay with spy talk because once
Speaker 1: some of these sources get the badge of anonymity, they're
Speaker 1: way more open about they say stuff they wouldn't say
Speaker 1: what their names attached, kind of like on the Internet.
Speaker 1: This guy's describing Charlie and says his peers thought highly
Speaker 1: of him, and his managers did, but a lot of
Speaker 1: people that worked for him couldn't stand him because he
Speaker 1: was such a dickhead. He just treated people really bad. Geez,
Speaker 1: this is not us say, we've never worked with Charlie mcgonigall.
Speaker 1: But he was successful. He went private industry, he goes
Speaker 1: he becomes a vice president at a place called Brookfield Properties,
Speaker 1: which is a big deal real estate company, and just
Speaker 1: last year, in twenty twenty two, I think he was
Speaker 1: hired as the global head of security for a place
Speaker 1: called am En Resorts. Am An very a'm on, I believe, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I maybe a most pronouncing this place is controversial
Speaker 1: because of some murky links to a Russian, a guy
Speaker 1: who's a big deal in Russia who is not Putin
Speaker 1: and Oligarch. You may say, you might, some might and right,
Speaker 1: but there's always more to this story, right. So somewhere
Speaker 1: along the way, members of the counterintelligence community, which is very,
Speaker 1: very close knit, they started to question his allegiance, and
Speaker 1: this story dropped for us in like twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: but there was something in the wind by twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: So as far back as you said, Ben is twenty
Speaker 1: eighteen the British were taking some keeping some tabs on
Speaker 1: McGonagall and noticed that he was making some very taking
Speaker 1: rather some very suspicious meetings with a Russian national stead
Speaker 1: of a red flag. Considering the circumstances, even as far back,
Speaker 1: I mean, we've always been a little tenuous with the Russians.
Speaker 1: I suppose, you know, as far back as the Cold
Speaker 1: War and the Iron curtains, there's always a little bit
Speaker 1: of suspicion that comes into play when their secret meetings
Speaker 1: happening with Russian nationals. And in January of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: Charles McGonagall was arrested. This is just a couple of
Speaker 1: years later after the observation of this meeting on charges
Speaker 1: of money laundering, making false statements in mandatory disclosures to
Speaker 1: the FBI, violating US sanctions on Russia, because those are
Speaker 1: still ironclad and more. Yeah, and we should we should
Speaker 1: mention here. We talked, Ben talked about the glass world,
Speaker 1: where everybody's doing this kind of counterintelligence. It just should
Speaker 1: be noted that the British intelligence was checking out the
Speaker 1: Russian person whom McGonagall was meeting, and that's how it happened.
Speaker 1: And we talk a lot about five eyes and things
Speaker 1: like that, where there's a lot of intelligence sharing, not
Speaker 1: all of the intelligence, mind you never all of the intelligence,
Speaker 1: but quite a bit is shared between a lot of
Speaker 1: these Western countries. And I'm assuming that's kind of what
Speaker 1: happened here. There's back channeling to the FBI after they
Speaker 1: notice that's a little weird. Oh boy, I'm frightfully afraid
Speaker 1: then may be a fox and the in house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the FBI believe the British. They claimed there was a
Speaker 1: traitor in their midst. So what happened, We'll tell you
Speaker 1: after a word from our sponsor and we're back. That
Speaker 1: was hopefully Aman Resorts. Here's where it gets crazy. As
Speaker 1: much as this sounds like something out of a movie,
Speaker 1: it looked it looked to be the case that McGonagall
Speaker 1: have been turned. He has not been convicted yet. That's
Speaker 1: very important to say. We'll probably say it a couple
Speaker 1: times in this episode. But the authorities, pretty much all
Speaker 1: of them, DJ, FBI, you name it. They seem pretty
Speaker 1: convinced this guy was a spy or at the very
Speaker 1: least corrupt and had that super important intelligence information in
Speaker 1: his head or access to it potentially, you know, by
Speaker 1: means of a hard drive or a piece of paper
Speaker 1: and that kind of thing, and he could be sharing
Speaker 1: that stuff, right, And let's think a moment to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: something that spy movies get wrong, like works of fiction
Speaker 1: always get wrong, is is this And it's kind of
Speaker 1: disappointed thing. It's not great for movies. But intelligence, especially
Speaker 1: high level or secret intelligence, is often what we would
Speaker 1: call perishable, as it has a short shelf life, you know,
Speaker 1: like stuff from the organic aisle of the grocery store.
Speaker 1: So an otherwise just a window in which it is useful.
Speaker 1: And then outside of that is it is basically not yeah, correct,
Speaker 1: and so but this means that there's another kind of
Speaker 1: resource people like this can offer, and that is connections,
Speaker 1: that's influence. Connections are not necessarily perishable. They can be burned,
Speaker 1: just like a persona. So we don't like, we'll get
Speaker 1: into it, well, we'll get into what he was trading
Speaker 1: back and forth, but it seems to be it seems
Speaker 1: to be a little bit more like connections and intros
Speaker 1: and influence than it does to be actionable intelligence on
Speaker 1: the ground stuff. But his professional life definitely made him
Speaker 1: aware of tradecraft in a way that many many average
Speaker 1: people would would never You just wouldn't know, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: know what to ask. He ran one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: FBI agents in New York and they were tasked with
Speaker 1: remember we said the net bites back, they were tasked
Speaker 1: with shadowing foreign operatives the way the British were following
Speaker 1: this Russian contact and then turning those folks if they
Speaker 1: could in despise for the US. Now, this doesn't mean
Speaker 1: they're getting someone from like the Russian embassy and saying, hey,
Speaker 1: we know you're not the it guy and now you
Speaker 1: work for us. It could be something as seemingly innocuous
Speaker 1: as we know you work at this consulting firm, right,
Speaker 1: and we think you have a side gig and we
Speaker 1: want to give you another one. Or it could be
Speaker 1: we know that you are, yes, going to an academic
Speaker 1: conference here, or you're selling Turkish rugs or whatever, but
Speaker 1: we also know about those other meetings you had at
Speaker 1: the dunkin Donuts. Well, access is the name of the
Speaker 1: game here, right, I mean access to individuals, relationships, you know,
Speaker 1: with folks that you can kind of blend in with
Speaker 1: and and get information, whether it's nefarious in terms of
Speaker 1: the knowledge of that person, or whether it's just you're
Speaker 1: kind of got your ears open, you know, and you're
Speaker 1: you know, working in these circles. So when they can
Speaker 1: identify someone that maybe is willing to play ball, who
Speaker 1: has that kind of access, Ding ding ding, Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I hope you had a great time at the conference.
Speaker 1: Why don't you when you when you get back to Turkey,
Speaker 1: you know, why don't you just let us know if
Speaker 1: any of your colleagues are making breakthroughs and things we
Speaker 1: would find of interest. Right, it's like an interest wink wink,
Speaker 1: you know, and they're talking to a young nuclear scientist
Speaker 1: or something. So this means McGonagle knows about this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. He's aware of it, and he's the top dog.
Speaker 1: He's got the catbird seat. Most people only think about
Speaker 1: this kind of world or industry when you watch cool
Speaker 1: spy movies, you know, the James Bond stuff, Tinker Taylor,
Speaker 1: Soldier spy, which is great. It holds up. So this guy,
Speaker 1: if he ever, if he does get convicted, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like he's some dude who worked at a bank
Speaker 1: for years and years and years before deciding to rob it,
Speaker 1: so he knows how the bank works already, which means
Speaker 1: and this is the thing that keeps tripping me up.
Speaker 1: This means that he should have, by all logic and reason,
Speaker 1: he should have had a better than average likelihood of
Speaker 1: conspiring successfully and getting away with it. That's what makes
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen even more confusing. Like we said, the British
Speaker 1: clocked at first he meets a rushing in London. Apparently,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that this is the same year he
Speaker 1: retired from the FBI, he did not know this contact
Speaker 1: was already being surveiled by the Brits. Like you said, Matt,
Speaker 1: they'll share intelligence, but never all of it. And this
Speaker 1: something small, something small like that. Okay, but you know
Speaker 1: this known Russian person we've been watching is in London
Speaker 1: right now, we're watching that person. There's no reason to
Speaker 1: share that information with you know, with the United States,
Speaker 1: the location and activities of an oligarch in your country.
Speaker 1: That doesn't make you know, that doesn't make a lot
Speaker 1: of sense. But when one of your former operatives or
Speaker 1: former you know, heads of an intelligence agency is meeting
Speaker 1: with your target, yeah, you're gonna you're gonna take note
Speaker 1: one anonymous source. Again, these guys kind of loosen their
Speaker 1: ties when they're anonymous. What anonymous source would later remark,
Speaker 1: what the was he thinking? Because years of expence, just
Speaker 1: coffee spraying, years of experience running counterintelligence opts means that
Speaker 1: McGonagall should have known this London encounter would attract notice. London,
Speaker 1: like New York, is highly surveiled in this world because
Speaker 1: there are so many centers of finance and you know,
Speaker 1: halls of state power there. And look, you know, this
Speaker 1: guy lives in the United States. He lives in a
Speaker 1: nice neighborhood, but he lives in a country separated by
Speaker 1: two huge oceans. You don't just the idea that you
Speaker 1: would travel across the Atlantic for a meeting or series
Speaker 1: of meetings implies that it was more than just an
Speaker 1: accidental run in, you know, or a casual acquaintance like, oh, oldleag,
Speaker 1: fancy seeing you here. I'm always saying that. I'm always
Speaker 1: saying that because I have a pretty good Russian friend
Speaker 1: whose name is olig So wow, so that's a shout
Speaker 1: out to you. But oh no, no, no, he's not
Speaker 1: an olig Arc. Okay, he's not an Oligarc. So he
Speaker 1: does live in London. Though, now that I think about it,
Speaker 1: I should text him. Yeah, I don't meet in a
Speaker 1: park or something. Look, um, do you think he used
Speaker 1: his cell phone to arrange that? Probably not his personal
Speaker 1: cell phone or a burner or some kind of encrypted guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't. You don't just make a phone call to
Speaker 1: your buddy who happens to be an oligarch and go
Speaker 1: meet him if your former head of FBI counterintelligence. We
Speaker 1: don't know who the Russian contact was yet, but it probably,
Speaker 1: I'm guessing it probably would have been an agent of
Speaker 1: an olagark for an interest you know when we're we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about here in a minute. Yeah, handler
Speaker 1: fixer for for a bigger cat. But this means like
Speaker 1: these sources are saying, Okay, this meeting just doesn't just happen.
Speaker 1: So in our mind, based on the knowledge we have
Speaker 1: is the FBI, this means that we probably stumbled upon
Speaker 1: an extended relationship that this was not there for contact,
Speaker 1: and mcgonagal by that logic, had probably been in contact
Speaker 1: before he retired from the FBI. We don't know the
Speaker 1: exact month he retired in twenty eighteen, but we do
Speaker 1: know this meeting in London happened in twenty eighteen, so
Speaker 1: it may have even been a case where you know,
Speaker 1: he gets out and he says, hello, buddy, don't worry,
Speaker 1: I got out. You know, I'm a freeman, right, I'm
Speaker 1: open to other opportunities. Yeah. But the British were like, oh, wait,
Speaker 1: isn't there an Embassy, like, right around the corner, maybe
Speaker 1: we should tell the US guys this happened. So that's
Speaker 1: what they do, right, Yeah, they go to the attache
Speaker 1: at the US Embassy and they're like, look, we know
Speaker 1: Fred is not really the IT guy and we need
Speaker 1: to talk to him. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. The FBI,
Speaker 1: I think, is pretty public with their legal attach a stuff.
Speaker 1: They don't need to be all skull duggery issue about it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the FBI said, okay, we believe you, and
Speaker 1: thanks for telling us. We're going to open an investigation
Speaker 1: into McGonagall. And in twenty twenty one, just a few
Speaker 1: years back, US attorneys conspired they secretly got a grand
Speaker 1: jury together to look at the evidence, and the Justice
Speaker 1: Department had to admit that a grand jury was happening,
Speaker 1: but they refused to say what the grand jury was
Speaker 1: investigating or whether it remained ongoing, which is a brilliant
Speaker 1: psychic I mean, they have to, but it's also brilliant
Speaker 1: from a PSI op standpoint, because if you have done
Speaker 1: anything that you're worried about and you're just here there's
Speaker 1: a grand jury doing something, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: just make that announcement and watch everybody right right, open
Speaker 1: your safe of fake passports and get your bag of
Speaker 1: loose diamonds out. I say, love it, or you're like
Speaker 1: coffee can if you're a betterical song. Yeah, yeah, whatever
Speaker 1: it is. It's like a you know, one of those
Speaker 1: cookie tins. Then everyone keeps like sewing stuff in. You know.
Speaker 1: I saw one of those with cookies in at one time,
Speaker 1: and it blew my mind. Those are good cookies, man,
Speaker 1: those short bread cookies. Pretty like those. I like them.
Speaker 1: I like them all right, I mean I don't. I'm
Speaker 1: not a very sort of curk thing. Yeah, I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure those cookies had PCP and them cool. You don't
Speaker 1: put them in there unless they got some, unless they're wet,
Speaker 1: wet cookies. They come, they come in their own little, tiny, dainty,
Speaker 1: little little cup, you know, cup that's let's go, let's
Speaker 1: go do a ride along King Kong. And got nothing
Speaker 1: on Matt, right, So, uh, Matt's childhood PCP experiences aside.
Speaker 1: That's why you are the way you are, which is awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is awesome. This is not us condoning smoking wet,
Speaker 1: but let us know about your experiences out. It's funny, David,
Speaker 1: Let's keep it um, let's keep out, Let's keep it
Speaker 1: in the part where sail escape it. So uh okay.
Speaker 1: So here's how we know about this. Earlier Business Insider,
Speaker 1: which has done a series of great reports on this,
Speaker 1: they managed to obtain a witness subpoena that shed light
Speaker 1: on what they were doing. And at the time, the
Speaker 1: subpoena was asking this witness for records about mcgonagall's interaction
Speaker 1: with a consulting firm. And consulting firms can be very
Speaker 1: shady called spectrum risk solutions. Yeah, the more innocuous the name,
Speaker 1: the more shady the dealings. And we should say it's
Speaker 1: security like it's it's based in security. Right. You have
Speaker 1: a former FBI agent who has a lot of security
Speaker 1: experience who's now moving into the private sector. And then
Speaker 1: that thing like what is that entity doing? M Yeah,
Speaker 1: because security, like consulting, can also mean many many different things.
Speaker 1: But on the if we didn't look past the surface,
Speaker 1: it makes sense if you're a private firm, you want
Speaker 1: to hire somebody with experience, right, and they have experience
Speaker 1: in one of the best intelligence counterintelligence operations on the planet.
Speaker 1: So this is this is a good get for you.
Speaker 1: But it turns out that Spectrum was probably doing some
Speaker 1: shady proxy stuff to help with some introductions that we
Speaker 1: don't have to get into, but we do know they
Speaker 1: involved operatives of a guy we're about to meet, Olag
Speaker 1: dere Paska, not my pal, like different dude, much older,
Speaker 1: much older than my pal, but not to be confused
Speaker 1: with Olaf the delightful singing snowman from the Frozen film franchise.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, absolutely not that guy. That guy is Pakistan
Speaker 1: Intelligence through and through. Everybody knows he's with I SI,
Speaker 1: but I'd say it rewatch it, Okay. So it's there,
Speaker 1: It's all the clues are there. It's there if you
Speaker 1: look for it. So McDonald, let's talk about the charges,
Speaker 1: all right. What's he actually charged with? And again he
Speaker 1: hasn't been convicted. So McGonagall was actually charged in two
Speaker 1: separate corruption cases involving illegal cash receipts and money laundering,
Speaker 1: the first for allegedly taking secret payments of more than
Speaker 1: two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars from a former
Speaker 1: Albanian intelligence agent on behalf of a political party there.
Speaker 1: He also apparently kept a framed photo of him with
Speaker 1: Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama. I'm laughing because it's just
Speaker 1: that's a weird thing to do in general. You know,
Speaker 1: you got to really stand for somebody if you're walking
Speaker 1: around with a framed photo of you and them, like
Speaker 1: that's not a member of your family. It's sort of
Speaker 1: like those people that have pictures of them and like
Speaker 1: George Bush on their mantle. But this is even a
Speaker 1: step further than that, isn't right. Yeah, I want to
Speaker 1: put this part in because it's it seems to indicate
Speaker 1: that he was, like you said, proud of the relationship
Speaker 1: and also wasn't wasn't worried about people knowing that this
Speaker 1: is his home office. By the way, in the same room,
Speaker 1: he's got a framed photo of him with a guy
Speaker 1: named Rob mush Hara Dinaj, who was a former Prime
Speaker 1: Minister of Kosovo. This starts to get international real quick.
Speaker 1: We also know in twenty eighteen he had access to
Speaker 1: a secret list of Russian oligarks that Uncle Sam was
Speaker 1: going to sanction for their ties to Luke Kremlin, their
Speaker 1: ties to Putin Well. He was keeping an eye, like
Speaker 1: his group was keeping an eye specifically on those oligarchs
Speaker 1: where's the money? Where? How's it being spent? Right now?
Speaker 1: And moved around, and then he ends up being accused
Speaker 1: of trying to get this one particular oligarch tera Posca
Speaker 1: removed from that potential list right right, the mongoose appears
Speaker 1: to have befriended the snake it was supposed to hunt.
Speaker 1: That second charge is just as you described it, Matt.
Speaker 1: There's this Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and apparently McGonagall and
Speaker 1: he worked out some kind of arrangement where he was
Speaker 1: going to try to get dere Pasca off of US sanctions,
Speaker 1: which is a big, big deal because he has access
Speaker 1: to a lot of money from his side of the fence,
Speaker 1: and if he can play ball in the US, then
Speaker 1: he can move that money very easily to make it
Speaker 1: dance for him in all kinds of ways dance funny money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he was paid monthly, right, he was like employed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had w nines you know, I mean this is well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I know, he definitely did not have
Speaker 1: anything of the sort, but yeah, he was. He was
Speaker 1: paid twenty five thousand dollars a month for work that
Speaker 1: he was doing here, which is great money. Twenty five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. That that should give everybody kind of a
Speaker 1: glimpse into what oligarch Well, like the capital, the oligarchs
Speaker 1: are capable of spending easily. You know. No, it's not
Speaker 1: how so said level, but it's still it's big, you
Speaker 1: know this, This is the kind of thing where in
Speaker 1: the mind of the oligarch you go, what's the smallest
Speaker 1: amount of money that would seem like a huge money
Speaker 1: to one of these law peasants. Twenty five g's a month. Yeah, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: but what account is it going to come from? Ah?
Speaker 1: That's where you get careful, right, because in addition to
Speaker 1: that five grand you're ponying up, you also have to
Speaker 1: pay for the support structure to keep it from looking
Speaker 1: like you're openly cutting this guy at check every month.
Speaker 1: So this goes through an account held by a former
Speaker 1: Russian diplomat who worked as an interpreter for the US government.
Speaker 1: His name, Sergei Shstakov, not made up, that's his real name.
Speaker 1: And one would assume that, you know, these types of
Speaker 1: folks are vetted pretty heavily if their former Russian officials
Speaker 1: or a Russian you know, would you consider a diplomat
Speaker 1: not an operative, but still people within the Russian government.
Speaker 1: If they're coming to work for US, you would assume
Speaker 1: that they're being paid pretty close attention to in terms
Speaker 1: of their background and their allegiances and all of that, right, Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the bar is pretty high. The background checks are quite extensive,
Speaker 1: you know, the net is pretty tight there. And because
Speaker 1: they're these folks are professionals right there, They're not amateurs.
Speaker 1: And the one of the big issues that's happened in
Speaker 1: recent years is that the US government has challenges getting
Speaker 1: people who are fluent in certain high value languages, like
Speaker 1: it's it's tough to find those people, so they are prioritized,
Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah, Okay, well, let's talk about Darris Bosca.
Speaker 1: He has Ian McGonagall. This is very cinematic. They have
Speaker 1: been aware of each other for years. Like the the
Speaker 1: FBI as far back as twenty fourteen tried to recruit
Speaker 1: our pal Oleg as an informant because of course he's
Speaker 1: high value. Well yeah, let's let's talk about why he's
Speaker 1: high value. Okay, sure, this dude, this oligarch Oleg was
Speaker 1: the richest person in Russia in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: the richest person in Russian two thousand and eight, and
Speaker 1: then what happened in two thousand and eight, two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine, Guys, huge crash in the United States, huge
Speaker 1: global economy crash. He ended up losing a ton of money,
Speaker 1: had a bunch of debt, and his net worth right
Speaker 1: now was around just under a three billion. But he
Speaker 1: was the richest person in Russia in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: And you can imagine then after losing a ton of
Speaker 1: that money, by the time you get to twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: he's made all the connections as the richest the former
Speaker 1: richest person in Russia, right, and he's moving in all them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's in a debt's pretty he's in a much more
Speaker 1: vulnerable place than he had been in a long time.
Speaker 1: Probably you can imagine he was a target. Oh I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I see I was reading it the other way. I
Speaker 1: was looking at it like he lost all that money.
Speaker 1: He had all these connections from back when he was
Speaker 1: super rich, so now he was going to exploit those connections.
Speaker 1: But it's the other way around to what we were
Speaker 1: saying earlier, that access that he had was seen as
Speaker 1: like red meat for those who would seek to exploit him. Well, well,
Speaker 1: that's why I'm saying the FBI wanted him, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get it, I get it. Yeah, of course you
Speaker 1: would want. This guy's the bell of the ball intelligence wise,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It's like that Uncle Sam Poster,
Speaker 1: we want you, except it's a dude in a suit
Speaker 1: with some glasses, and it just I'm sorry to just
Speaker 1: keep harping on this guys, but he's involved in so
Speaker 1: many industries within Russia that if you think about the
Speaker 1: actions Russia took with the Crimean Peninsula, you know, for shipping,
Speaker 1: for getting goods in and out of Russia and out
Speaker 1: of that that whole area, basically he was in how
Speaker 1: did they describe it at Forbes Aluminum like utilities, energy, construction, agriculture.
Speaker 1: He was in all the stuff, all of the agro culture.
Speaker 1: Am I Right? There we go. Also two important points.
Speaker 1: I'm hesitant sometimes with the use of old arts to
Speaker 1: describe these Russian actors. They are tentacles of the state.
Speaker 1: But also it seems to imply that there aren't oligarchs
Speaker 1: running the United States, and that's very much the case. Yeah. Always,
Speaker 1: I always get a little confused about the term. I mean, officially, uh,
Speaker 1: it is a small group of very wealthy individuals that
Speaker 1: kind of run a state in a sort of shadowy way, right,
Speaker 1: because because they've got the power of the purse essentially,
Speaker 1: like there their money talks and they are influencing government.
Speaker 1: But no, what what is what? What are corporations? You know?
Speaker 1: And in America, you know what are like super super
Speaker 1: wealthy campaign donors. Why are so many people? Why are
Speaker 1: so many of the same people on the top board
Speaker 1: of directors across all these kind of out revolving door
Speaker 1: you were talking about them, you know, folks going from
Speaker 1: you know, these positions of government power to private industry
Speaker 1: and then becoming the top dogs they are, and then
Speaker 1: they have those connections. I mean, this is a topic
Speaker 1: for another day, but I agree. I think the term oligarch,
Speaker 1: especially in terms of using to describe other countries, it's
Speaker 1: like this is something that happens in other countries. So
Speaker 1: but yeah, that's so not true. Yeah, that's the point
Speaker 1: of making here's the second point, just real quick, soing,
Speaker 1: so this up he is olig is in trouble in
Speaker 1: Russia as well. Now this last year, a year ago
Speaker 1: actually he called for peace in Ukraine. He said, destroying
Speaker 1: Ukraine would be a huge mistake, and a few months
Speaker 1: after that, Russian authorities started seizing some of his assets,
Speaker 1: including a hotel complex. He owens and sochi. Oh, that's right,
Speaker 1: that was that was a retribution kind of almost, wasn't it?
Speaker 1: Well again, we got I think we when we do
Speaker 1: a series on oligarchs, it's probably this guy's his own episode.
Speaker 1: But but we do. We just I think the only
Speaker 1: reason why I'm okay with describing Oleg as an oligarch
Speaker 1: is because he is one of these guys that got
Speaker 1: his business roots are at the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: So he's one of these guatization. He's one of the
Speaker 1: guys that swooped in with private money, bought up all
Speaker 1: of the state run stuff that well was state run
Speaker 1: at the time, and then just made billions and billions
Speaker 1: for the equivalent of pennies on the dollar. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: McGonagall had investigated multiple Russian operatives earlier in his career.
Speaker 1: It's currently unclear whether he was involved with the effort
Speaker 1: to recruit dry Pasca. But here's the thing. If you've
Speaker 1: ever worked anywhere, you tend to have some idea of
Speaker 1: your colleague's projects. Unless you're in like the puzzle palace,
Speaker 1: you are. You might not be actively involved in something,
Speaker 1: but you know what they do, right. You're not up
Speaker 1: to the day to day of the accounting or like
Speaker 1: the folks who are I don't know, involved in some
Speaker 1: new initiative, but you know they're doing something you roughly
Speaker 1: know what. Before his retirement in twenty eighteen, McGonagall had
Speaker 1: moved to the point where he was directly in charge
Speaker 1: of investigating Olig and this guy, like you said, many
Speaker 1: already been implicated in so many criminal acts over the years,
Speaker 1: including Russian attempts to sway the US election, the same
Speaker 1: election that, according to some anonymous sources, McGonagall may have
Speaker 1: also tried to sway. The press caught on they began
Speaker 1: reporting on this, and they uncover a lot of firsthand
Speaker 1: accounts from anonymous former colleagues. But then also they found
Speaker 1: account messy personal life stuff like it looked like Olig
Speaker 1: and Charlie had started helping each other out, kind of
Speaker 1: on a personal as well as professional level, like he was.
Speaker 1: Charlie was helping Olig's daughter with some stuff. It was
Speaker 1: very important to Olig that she get to the US
Speaker 1: to give birth. So that her child would have us
Speaker 1: papers that clean. And it seems like Charlie was also
Speaker 1: stepping out on his wife, who he described as his
Speaker 1: ex wife. They seem to have been estranged for a bit.
Speaker 1: And this is just reporting. This is not us personally
Speaker 1: saying this. We had an extra marital relationship, a girlfriend
Speaker 1: on the side. Alison gertietro Of from about spring at
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen to twenty eighteen. Yes, yes, relationships can always
Speaker 1: be tough. Affairs are not ethically sound, but adultery is
Speaker 1: not a crime in Maryland. Still, this tells us more
Speaker 1: about the case. What do we mean? We'll tell you
Speaker 1: after a word from our sponsors and we've returned, you know,
Speaker 1: mat It occurs to me that this next part of
Speaker 1: the story, if someone makes a movie on this, this
Speaker 1: is going to be the part they focus on way
Speaker 1: too much, because screenwriters and TV writers are always like, oh,
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about the emotional aspects of the thing.
Speaker 1: Let's have everybody use their names way too often in
Speaker 1: a scene. Well, yeah, the b storyline is it's often
Speaker 1: what gets you through to the next important plot point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's functional, You're right, I I sound cold
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I think it's okay for people to have emotions.
Speaker 1: That's not fair of me. Whatever. So, okay, these guys
Speaker 1: both have pretty they don't have perfect personal lives. Who does.
Speaker 1: The thing is it would not have necessarily been illegal
Speaker 1: for Charlie McGonagall to work for Oleg Depasca, right, No,
Speaker 1: I mean if it was, if he truly left his
Speaker 1: post at the FBI and just started up, you know,
Speaker 1: a new position somewhere, utilizing the things he'd learned in
Speaker 1: his position, not necessarily any of the seats, but the skills,
Speaker 1: then I guess that's okay. We do know, you don't
Speaker 1: you never really leave an intelligence agency when you retire,
Speaker 1: and not really kind of mostly but not really. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess it depends on because these are big, big operations, right,
Speaker 1: so I guess it depends on what you do. But
Speaker 1: if you're like a special agent in charge, it does
Speaker 1: seem like those relationships and influences would follow you after,
Speaker 1: you know, after you leave. And even if even people
Speaker 1: who go through the debriefing process still I'm confident they
Speaker 1: can still make some calls and things like that. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's I don't know, I just I don't
Speaker 1: know if we want to paint a huge broad brush
Speaker 1: and say that everybody is still active when they leave.
Speaker 1: Some people some people are still some people are still
Speaker 1: just you know, going fishing, right. Yeah. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: mean to say. I don't mean to say you're always
Speaker 1: active even when you retire. What I mean is like
Speaker 1: a part of it, a part of the journey stays
Speaker 1: with you, you know what I mean. I don't know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. But ultimately, there's a you have a
Speaker 1: tie to the FBI now no matter what, even if
Speaker 1: you're retired, right, And it's not that you have that information,
Speaker 1: you know, it's no, it's known that you're aware of
Speaker 1: the methods. That's probably one of the most important things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna go into a relationship like this with
Speaker 1: an oligarch, you basically would just have to inform everybody
Speaker 1: and be upfront about it. Hey, guys, just want to
Speaker 1: let you know I'm doing my thing over here now
Speaker 1: with the whole legg Uh. You know, you check it
Speaker 1: out if you need to, totally fine, buff board, But
Speaker 1: that's not what happened. Do you think they had nicknames
Speaker 1: for each other? Oh? He was was he calling him
Speaker 1: like the leg man or something that's a cool dick
Speaker 1: dave like man. It's probably just like Chucking Gregg or
Speaker 1: something real sick. Yeah, yeah, no, you're right, you're right.
Speaker 1: They they may not have their conversations may not have
Speaker 1: been as fun as ours. But but yeah. The Foreign
Speaker 1: Agents Registration Act, it's an old law and it's one
Speaker 1: of those laws that is still in effect. It requires
Speaker 1: anybody who is operating for a foreign government organization or
Speaker 1: a VIP of some sort to disclose their relationship to
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice. And part of this, I mean,
Speaker 1: it doesn't ban any specific activities, but it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a let us know, loop us in so we
Speaker 1: understand what's going on. And if you don't do that,
Speaker 1: then you can get hit with a two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars fine and up to five years in prison.
Speaker 1: There's there's a report again from Business Insider did some
Speaker 1: excellent work here. The show's mcgonagall's girlfriend kind of always
Speaker 1: knew something was up. She knew he was lying to
Speaker 1: her about the state of his previous relationship. You know,
Speaker 1: he said he loved his kids, but he has a
Speaker 1: soon to be ex wife and they're definitely going to
Speaker 1: get divorced, and they've been per her Dave. He's saying that,
Speaker 1: you know, the marriage is over and it's just almost
Speaker 1: a matter of paperwork. And he goes back home to
Speaker 1: Maryland once or twice a month, but he has an
Speaker 1: apartment in Park Sloop in New York. And one day
Speaker 1: in October twenty seventeen, I think it is, she's hanging
Speaker 1: out at his apartment and she sees a literal bag
Speaker 1: of cash on the floor, bundles and bundles of big
Speaker 1: denominations wrapped up in rubber bands. And she's like, Charlie,
Speaker 1: what was going on? And he says, oh, I want
Speaker 1: to bet a baseball game. Dang, Charlie man suffle bag bets.
Speaker 1: All right, yeah, I should do that more often. Cheeziles.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah yeah. Um. I guess the girlfriend his his
Speaker 1: a girlfriend at the time really just kind of believed
Speaker 1: what she was being sold. Um, And he was definitely
Speaker 1: not being upfront about really anything there. Um, And I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't I guess you just kind of
Speaker 1: move on. He go all right, well, I guess that's
Speaker 1: his that's his baseball money. Let's go see that movie.
Speaker 1: Charlie's baseball money. Yeah. Uh. She had also had relationships
Speaker 1: in the past with people who are in law enforcement.
Speaker 1: You can find a picture of her with Giuliani by
Speaker 1: the way, Rudy Giuliani And yeah, and she said, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes I just didn't ask questions. I knew. Charlie lived large.
Speaker 1: He would take her to really posh, nice restaurants. He
Speaker 1: would give her gifts of large amounts of cash for birthday,
Speaker 1: like five hundred thousand dollars. He said he would frame
Speaker 1: his divorce papers for her as a present. He would
Speaker 1: take her to private box games to watch the New
Speaker 1: Jersey Devils saw hockey team there and then she saw it.
Speaker 1: She recalls stuff like one time he just gave somebody
Speaker 1: on the street one hundred dollars, like he got his panhandling,
Speaker 1: and he said, well, I'm better off than he is.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to help him because I'm in a
Speaker 1: better place. And then she also said she contracted cancer.
Speaker 1: She battled cancer for a while, and she said during
Speaker 1: that time he would he was very loving and caring,
Speaker 1: and he would send agents to drive her back and
Speaker 1: forth from treatment in government vehicles. He's kind of playing
Speaker 1: fast and loose with the company property at that point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's pretty nuts. So McGonagall and his girlfriend were living
Speaker 1: it up. They were doing some great things. I mean,
Speaker 1: come on, hanging out Washington, New Jersey, Devils in a box.
Speaker 1: That's cool, that's fun. But his girlfriend and he said,
Speaker 1: quote he needed to make more money. He had two
Speaker 1: kids to put through college and he you know, it
Speaker 1: was a whole other family as a wife too. He
Speaker 1: needed to make more money as the big deal here.
Speaker 1: Mm yeah, yeah, it's never enough, right, we all know
Speaker 1: the game and the slope, for God's sakes, in an apartment,
Speaker 1: come on, that's an expensive area, and that's your second
Speaker 1: place or third, that's your second place. Yeah. In the
Speaker 1: world of counterintelligence, you know, any any little crack in
Speaker 1: someone's personal life can, should, and will be used as
Speaker 1: leverage if needed. So that means Matt throughout the devil
Speaker 1: hordes there. Uh, that means that any compromising personal information
Speaker 1: can and will be used against someone. And infidelity is
Speaker 1: just as valuable to those sorts of operatives as crushing debt.
Speaker 1: It's a way in. But it doesn't seem in this
Speaker 1: case that adultery was the prime factor in his turning
Speaker 1: it seems he sold himself for different reasons. And again,
Speaker 1: if there is a conviction that follows, if Uncle Sam
Speaker 1: is able to prove this conspiracy, it honestly looks like
Speaker 1: he sold himself kind of cheap because when he was private,
Speaker 1: industry sources report he was pulling something like three hundred
Speaker 1: to three and fifty thousand dollars a year, not counting
Speaker 1: annual bonuses. And I get at college costs or increasing,
Speaker 1: but that's still that's a fair amount of money. I
Speaker 1: would imagine it's a lot of money. Kidneys, it's gone
Speaker 1: a lot of money. It's quite a bit of money.
Speaker 1: And so before we start sounding like a Seinfeld episode
Speaker 1: or curb your enthusiasm, it's a lot of body. He
Speaker 1: apparently needed more. And remember, I think earlier, Matt you
Speaker 1: mentioned it was two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars
Speaker 1: that he had received in the high level world of
Speaker 1: tradecraft and consulting firms and oligarchs. That's peanuts. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you do the cost benefit analysis, what we say,
Speaker 1: even just the Foreign Registration Act getting popped on that
Speaker 1: one is a two hundred and fifty thousand dollars fine.
Speaker 1: You know, take a lesson from the banks. Make sure
Speaker 1: that if you are convicted of a crime, the fine
Speaker 1: for that is less than the money you made doing
Speaker 1: the crime. Hey, so you always come out on top.
Speaker 1: So you always come out on top and shut out
Speaker 1: Mac always study in Philadelphia. I mean, that's the thing,
Speaker 1: all right. The current status Charles McGonigal has not been convicted.
Speaker 1: There has not been a trial. So a lot of
Speaker 1: what we're exploring here is just what has been said
Speaker 1: in the public sphere. It's quite possible that there is
Speaker 1: information on the defense side and the prosecutor side that
Speaker 1: will only later come to light and it may change
Speaker 1: the conversation. He made ale, he paid a five hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars bond. He is, to all accounts, he is
Speaker 1: currently residing there in Maryland. Uh, I don't know, Chevy Chase,
Speaker 1: not Slope, New York or whatever? Is that? Is that Brooklyn?
Speaker 1: I think that yeah, yeah, yeah, it's Brooklyn. Uh. And
Speaker 1: I gotta ask, do you think he'll be convicted? Um? Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think on some charges at least
Speaker 1: there's fishy stuff, but it's high. It's also so highly sensitive.
Speaker 1: I wonder how much, oh right, how much could be
Speaker 1: an open court. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the thing I personally think right now. It is
Speaker 1: likely that he'll be convicted on at least some charges,
Speaker 1: but there is only a chapter in a much larger
Speaker 1: story of conspiracy. As we're recording to day, it is
Speaker 1: certain that multiple government agents are being targeted by Turn
Speaker 1: for turning operations. Hopefully none of them will be successful.
Speaker 1: The McGonagall case is extraordinarily rare, but the conspiracies continue.
Speaker 1: We only know about the ones who get caught. Of course,
Speaker 1: foreign powers want people on the inside of their rivals operations,
Speaker 1: and why not. I mean, don't forget folks, especially if
Speaker 1: you live in America, around the planet, in every country
Speaker 1: you can imagine right now, the United States wants the same.
Speaker 1: That's how the game is played. Who so, you know,
Speaker 1: let's do our little podcast. Yeah, yeah, let's talk about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh god, So what do you think? It's just this
Speaker 1: just a case of a former spy going out and
Speaker 1: trying to make some cash in you know, a way
Speaker 1: that he understands how to do it. Or is it
Speaker 1: some kind of tricksy thing going on the back in
Speaker 1: the background between the US and Russian powers. I don't
Speaker 1: know if we saw this, ben, but there was a
Speaker 1: March twenty seventeen report connecting this same guy, Dry Pasca
Speaker 1: Olegg to Paul Manafort, the guy who was running Trump's campaign,
Speaker 1: and allegedly Paul Manafort was getting paid a lot of
Speaker 1: money on a multi year contract to specifically promote Russia
Speaker 1: and the things that Russia wanted. He had a contract
Speaker 1: with Derri Pasca. Dera Pasca also sued Manafort. He did,
Speaker 1: he did. There's a connection to Christopher Steele from the
Speaker 1: Steel dossier, you know, the Ppe dossier. There's some weird
Speaker 1: stuff going on with that oligarch, that guy who the
Speaker 1: guy who is known as an oligarch. Yeah, which which
Speaker 1: oligarch's should we look into? Let us know. We hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed today's episode. Again, this is unfolding case, but
Speaker 1: it can It's a window through which we can view
Speaker 1: a world that does not have to get explored. We
Speaker 1: want to hear your thoughts. Find us on Facebook, Instagram,
Speaker 1: TikTok until the US takes that down, would love it.
Speaker 1: If you check out our YouTube show, you can see
Speaker 1: not too many spoilers, but you can see that night
Speaker 1: getting back to our roots there in a way that
Speaker 1: I think we both really enjoy. And if you also
Speaker 1: not like our roots dancing way too much, and and
Speaker 1: if you don't sip the social meds, as always, we've
Speaker 1: got your back, fellow conspiracy realists. You can call us
Speaker 1: directly dial one eight three three std wy t K.
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Speaker 1: don't care what it is. Don't use your real name.
Speaker 1: Come on, we've learned more than this. Don't use your
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