Charles McGonigal (L), the former head of counterintelligence for the FBI’s New York office, leaves Manhattan Federal Court in New York City on Jan. 23, 2023. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Former FBI senior official Charles McGonigal had compromised the FBI’s investigation into the now-defunct China Energy Fund Committee (CEFC) and allowed one of the targets to avoid arrest, according to a Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report recently made public.
In 2023, McGonigal was sentenced to four years in prison for his role in a scheme to help a Russian oligarch evade U.S. sanctions. A source in that case, called Person B in the report, had told FBI agents that McGonigal leaked confidential information to him about the CEFC investigation, which Person B then passed on to the investigation targets.
