Justice Dept. OIG Releases Report on Ex-FBI Agent’s Alleged Misconduct

On Sept. 4, the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released a report on its administrative investigation that followed the criminal investigation of Charles McGonigal, whom the report describes as “a former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) senior official who had served as the Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of Counterintelligence for the FBI’s New York Field Office (FBI NY) from October 2016 until he retired from the FBI in September 2018.”

In 2023, McGonigal pleaded guilty to several crimes, including working secretly for a Russian oligarch. This report offers new revelations about McGonigal’s role in tipping off an individual at the China Energy Fund Committee, which was the target of a 2017 FBI investigation. According to the OIG report, McGonigal “obstructed a criminal investigation that he was then supervising by disclosing sensitive, nonpublic case information about the subjects and targets of the investigation to the foreign national,” and withheld “information relevant to the case from the investigating F.B.I. N.Y. case agents.”   

The report concluded:

McGonigal's actions, while he served as a high-ranking FBI official entrusted with overseeing sensitive counterintelligence and criminal matters, were extraordinary and dishonored the FBI's core values of integrity, accountability, and leadership expected of all FBI personnel. Through his scheme, McGonigal intentionally damaged an important criminal case, violated the public trust, and compromised the integrity of the FBI.

Read the report here or below: