[RedState] As anticipated, former FBI official Charles McGonigal pled guilty on Tuesday to one count of conspiracy in federal court in New York arising out of his efforts to aid Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska in evading U.S. sanctions.
The Information filed Tuesday (and which can be viewed in its entirety below) alleged one count of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which authorizes the president to regulate international commerce, including investigating and imposing controls on transactions and freezing foreign assets under U.S. jurisdiction when a national emergency is declared as to any external "unusual and extraordinary threat to the United States."
The Information alleges that in furtherance of the conspiracy, McGonigal:
a. From in or about August 2021 through in or about November 2021, McGONIGAL and others, acting at the behest of Oleg Deripaska, whom the United States Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control designated as a Specially Designated National on or about April 6, 2018, sought to gather derogatory information about a rival of Deripaska, in violation of IEEPA.
b. From in or about August 2021 through in or about November 2021, McGONIGAL and others received and routed payments from Deripaska through two corporations, neither of which was registered in the name of McGONIGAL or Deripaska, in an effort to conceal that the payments originated from Deripaska.
McGonigal was originally charged with five counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, money laundering (and conspiracy to commit same), and violating the IEEPA (and conspiracy to commit same). Pursuant to Tuesday's plea, the remaining four charges will be dismissed.
McGonigal, 55, was formerly the FBI special agent in charge of the bureau's counterintelligence division from 2016 to 2018, which ironically meant that he was involved in investigating former President Donald Trump for Russian collusion, then essentially engaged in it himself. As streiff explained in January:
McGonigal was a key figure in creating the Russian Hoax. He’s the guy who received the allegation made by Australian High Commissioner to the UK Alexander Downer that Trump campaign aid George Papadopoulos said the Russians have “dirt on Hillary.” For a trip down memory lane, read Was a Drunken Conversation Really All the Probable Cause the FBI Needed to Investigate a Presidential Campaign?
While the media is harping on the “Russian oligarch” narrative because they can never admit Hillary Clinton’s opposition research team thoroughly punked them, it is useful to remember that in 2009, FBI Director Robert Mueller approached Deripaska about funding a private effort to locate American citizen, former FBI agent, and suspected CIA asset Robert Levinson who had gone missing in Iran. More memories can be found at There Might Be a Very Good Reason Why Mueller Is Not Indicting Paul Manafort’s Russian Business Partner. Even as the Russia Hoax was unfolding, Hillary’s oppo team at Fusion GPS was working on getting sanctions removed from Deripaska, which is the same activity that got McGonigal indicted; see
New York Times Forced To “Correct” Major Story on the Manafort Case. I don’t know the trajectory of McGonigal’s career, but it is entirely possible he was in the New York Field Office when Mueller tried to turn Deripaska into an FBI asset.
At the plea hearing on Tuesday, McGonigal expressed remorse for his actions.
The former FBI special agent in charge of the agency's counterintelligence division from 2016 to 2018 told the federal judge that he took over $17,000 from Deripaska in exchange for collecting derogatory information on a different Russian oligarch. Deripaska was a business competitor with the person McGonigal was paid to find derogatory information on.
Additionally, McGonigal was allegedly working to help get Deripaska removed from the sanctions list, prosecutors said.
The American was in talks, along with co-conspirators, to get a $650,000 to $3 million fee to search for hidden assets of $500 which belong to Deripaska's business rival.
...
"This, as you can imagine, has been a painful process not only for me, but for my friends, family and loved ones," McGonigal said. "I take full responsibility as my actions were never intended to hurt the United States, the FBI and my family and friends."
In addition to facing up to five years in prison, McGonigal must forfeit $17,500 pursuant to his plea agreement. He is scheduled to be sentenced in December.
Charges against McGonigal for misleading the FBI regarding his contacts with foreign nationals and concealing $225,000 he allegedly received from an Albanian intelligence employee remain pending in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C.
#2
...sought to gather derogatory information about a rival of Deripaska, in violation of IEEPA...
Excuse me, I'm not trying to defend this guy, but how is it a crime to seek to gather information, derogatory or otherwise? Isn't that, like, unconstitutional?
This seems like a very confusing, twisted tale. On the face of it, McGonigal seems to be the exact type of reptilian swamp creature the feds like to employ. I don't see how he did anything that swamp creatures don't do on a routine basis. But I'm guessing that somehow Deripaska made enemies among with swamp creatures and so associating with him was McGonigal's real crime.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/17/2023 12:12 Comments ||
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#3
Here comes the peacock feather for the oh so soft wrist slap.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
08/17/2023 15:52 Comments ||
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#4
For more on the history of the McGonigall family, see William McGonigall, the worlds worst poet.
Enjoy living up to your stated ideals, guys, even though y’all moved out to the suburbs to get away from all the Chicago nonsense.
[JustTheNews] About 12,000 migrants have arrived in Chicago from the southern U.S. border in the past year.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson says the city of Chicago has had conversations with suburban leaders in Cook and other counties about the possibility of moving migrants into their communities.
Thousands of migrant families have arrived in Chicago over the past year. City officials have placed many in police stations, YMCAs and Daley College.
Johnson said the city is looking at other towns to help with housing migrants.
"We've had conversations with mayors across not just Cook County but the surrounding counties, and we have had tremendous feedback," Johnson said. "We see some real support on the horizon."
Johnson said conversations will continue in the coming days and weeks.
"Looking forward in the days to come that these collaborative efforts that we have been organizing will begin to see some dynamic come to fruition," Johnson said.
About 12,000 migrants have arrived in Chicago from the southern U.S. border in the past year.
Maggie Rivera of the Illinois Migrant Council explained what else these families would need if they were moved into the suburbs.
"Being in the suburbs, for instance, if you bring them to Woodstock where we have no public transportation other than the Metra that runs to Chicago, that would be something that would have to be strategized," she said.
Rivera also told The Center Square that she has heard from families about a specific issue that could continue in the suburbs.
"I hear from a lot of the people in the shelters that we are at. They are always complaining about not getting enough food," Rivera said. "When there are families that have teenagers or growing kids, that will always be an issue."
Just this month, Johnson said Chicago would remain open for those who wish to come there, reaffirming the city's stance as a "sanctuary state," or a jurisdiction with lax local enforcement of federal immigration laws.
"Here's what I am committed to doing, honoring the law of being a sanctuary city and building systems of care that provide a pathway with dignity for individuals who are seeking refuge here in the city of Chicago," Johnson said.
So far, city and state taxpayers have set aside $94 million for migrant housing. The state budget has $550 million in taxpayer subsidies for health care of migrants over the age of 65.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
08/17/2023 9:33 Comments ||
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#10
I remember when they tore down some large, low income apartments in Chicago back in the 90's. The Chicago mayor bribed a lot of small town mayors to take in resident "refugees". Crime and murders became common in areas that never had it bad before. Some of the suburbs that were already declining around Chicago turned into ghettos overnight. My small town had to use all the Chicago money, and then some, to hire more police.
Posted by: Black Charlie Clunk9054 ||
08/17/2023 9:51 Comments ||
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#11
^ Cabrini Green
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/17/2023 10:40 Comments ||
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#12
Whew! Looks as if we got out of Naperville in time.
Posted by: Tom ||
08/17/2023 15:47 Comments ||
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[FoxNews] Abigail Jo Shry admitted she made the call during questioning at her Alvin, Texas, home, an affidavit revealed.
No doubt it felt good at the moment, but there is no true anonymity anymore — and in these troubled times nobody cares if you didn’t mean it.
A Texas woman is behind bars after allegedly threatening to kill U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan – the federal judge overseeing Special Counsel Jack Smith's 2020 election conspiracy case against former President Donald Trump – and U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee.
Abigail Jo Shry, of Alvin, Texas, is charged with transmitting a threat to injure a person via interstate commerce after being accused of making a threatening call to Chutkan's chambers in Washington D.C. on Aug. 5, according to an affidavit, which was filed in federal court on Aug. 11 and made public Wednesday by Bloomberg Law.
The document, signed by Special Agent Joshua Henry with the Department of Homeland Security's Federal Protective Service, alleges that Shry began the message by saying "Hey you stupid slave [N-word]," before threatening the life of anyone pursuing Trump.
The message included a direct threat to kill Rep. Lee, a Texas Democrat running for mayor in Houston, "all Democrats in Washington D.C. and all people in the LGBTQ community," the affidavit revealed.
In the message intended for Chutkan, Shry allegedly continued the threats by saying: "You are in our sights, we want to kill you. … We want to kill Sheila Jackson Lee. … If Trump doesn't get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you, so tread lightly, b----. … You will be targeted personally, publicly, your family, all of it."
Investigators were able to trace the message back to a phone owned by Shry and, on Aug. 8, Homeland Security special agents went to her home in southeast Texas for questioning.
During the conversation, Shry stated the phone belonged to her and admitted to making the threatening call, the affidavit showed. She allegedly added that she had no plans of traveling to D.C. or Houston to carry out the threats, but said they would "need to worry" if Lee visits Alvin.
Shry was ordered to be detained on Wednesday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Sam Sheldon of the Southern District of Texas.
Chutkan, an Obama appointee, has earned a reputation as the "toughest punisher" in cases related to Jan. 6. The Associated Press reported that she has "consistently taken the hardest line against Jan. 6 defendants of any judge serving on Washington’s federal trial court."
[Federalist] A left-wing, tax-exempt charity styling itself as "nonpartisan" is secretly funding Democrat-favorable voter registration efforts in key battleground states across the country, according to a new report.
Published by the Capital Research Center (CRC) on Tuesday, the report details how the Voter Registration Project (VRP) — which for years was privately known as the Everybody Votes campaign — funneled millions of dollars from left-wing billionaires into leftist groups in highly contested battleground states to register likely-Democrat voters.
"[F]unded by the Democratic Party’s biggest donors, and coordinated with cutthroat Democratic consultants, the Everybody Votes campaign used the guise of civic-minded charity to selectively register millions of ’non-white’ swing-state voters in the hopes of getting out the Democratic vote for a 2020 presidential win. It worked," the report reads.
As documented by the report, VRP seemingly first came to fruition in November 2015, when John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign chairman, received an email from the president of EMILY’s List, a political action committee that backs pro-abortion, female Democrats for public office. The email "asked if [Podesta] approved of the Everybody Votes campaign, a $106 million project designed to last five years and generate 2.2 million new votes in eight states by 2020—a project Podesta had been ’hoping for.'"
The proposal, according to CRC, was nearly identical to a plan sent to Podesta earlier that year by the president of the Wyss Foundation, a tax-exempt organization founded by left-wing Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, who has "a history of illegal interference in U.S. elections." That plan was purportedly crafted by Corridor Partners, a Democrat consulting firm.
According to CRC, the Corridor Partners plan had been edited to remove blatantly partisan language, suggesting an effort to obscure the initiative’s true purpose of registering likely-Democrat voters. It’s worth mentioning that federal law expressly prohibits partisan voter registration through nonprofits: "voter education or registration activities conducted in a biased manner that favors (or opposes) one or more candidates is prohibited."
#1
Not only 'tax-exempt', but exempt from financial source reporting as well. Foundations and charities have been money laundering cut-outs for decades.
#2
If they filed a 990 Schedule B (which they would have to have done as a 501(c)(3), then any single-source contributing $5k or more in a single year that source would have to be listed.
Below $5,000 per source, you are correct.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/17/2023 7:07 Comments ||
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[Breitbart] Although a Georgia grand jury indicted former President Donald Trump on Monday for challenging the 2020 election result, Democrats have refused to accept the results of elections they lost for decades.
As Breitbart News reported, more than 150 examples show Democrats denying election results, including President Joe Biden; two-time failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton; House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY); Reps. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Maxine Waters (D-CA), and Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX); and failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.
In fact, every single Democrat president since 1977 has questioned the legitimacy of U.S. elections, according to the Republican National Committee. In both 2013 and 2016, Biden claimed that Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election. In May 2019, Biden said he “absolutely agrees” that Trump was an “illegitimate president.” Biden cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2022 midterms this year.
In 2006, then-DNC Chairman Howard Dean stated that he was “not confident that the [2004] election in Ohio was fairly decided.” Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said it is “appropriate” to have a debate concerning the 2004 election and claimed that there were “legitimate concerns” regarding the “integrity” of U.S. elections. Then-Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) cast doubt on the security of electronic voting machines in the 2004 election, saying he was “worried” that some machines do not have a paper trail.
Democrats also cast doubt on the 2016 election. Seven House Democrats tried to object to the 2016 election electoral votes. After President Trump’s victory in 2016, 67 Democrats boycotted his inauguration, with some claiming Trump’s victory was not legitimate.
In September 2017, Hillary Clinton said she would not “rule out” questioning the legitimacy of the 2016 election. In October 2020, she added that the 2016 presidential election was not conducted legitimately, saying, “We still don’t really know what happened.”
In addition, Democrats supported Stacey Abrams in her stolen election claims. Hillary Clinton said Stacey Abrams “would have won” Georgia’s gubernatorial race “if she had a fair election” and that Stacey Abrams “should be governor” but was “deprived of the votes [she] otherwise would have gotten.”
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) said, “I think that Stacey Abrams’s election is being stolen from her.” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) contended that “if Stacey Abrams doesn’t win in Georgia, they stole it.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said, “the evidence seems to suggest” the race was stolen from Stacey Abrams.
“We won,” Abrams falsely claimed about the 2018 election. “I didn’t lose; we got the votes,” and “we were robbed of an election.” She also called it a “stolen election” multiple times and argued, “It was not a free and fair election.”
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Federalist] A left-wing, tax-exempt charity styling itself as "nonpartisan" is secretly funding Democrat-favorable voter registration efforts in key battleground states across the country, according to a new report.
