Late last month, the Justice Department brought charges against Charles McGonigal, a former FBI agent who authorities claim helped a Russian oligarch evade U.S. economic sanctions against Russia.
This is obviously a troubling development. McGonigal, who has pleaded not guilty, was the special agent in charge of counterintelligence for the FBI’s New York office. The charges suggest foreign governments are capable of infiltrating top law enforcement offices. It should almost go without saying: A Russian-backed FBI agent could have all sorts of access to key national security investigations, and could wield foreign influence in unfathomably dangerous ways.
But federal officers aren’t alone in being vulnerable to infiltration. Your local police department could fall victim, as well.
Early last year, the Daily Beast published a report by Jeff Stein that was headlined “The U.S. Cops Suckered by Foreign Spies With Honeytraps, Blackmail and Luxury Vacations.” The report uses law enforcement experts and federal indictments to show how countries, including Russia, Iran, China, Israel and Turkey, have cultivated sources inside local police departments.
The potential for that has worried U.S. officials for years.
Writing for Voice of America in June 2020, reporter Jeff Seldin detailed U.S. officials’ concerns that Russian officials were targeting local police officers with pro-police propaganda. The timing was key, as such efforts stood to worsen social divisions at a time when Americans were demonstrating against police brutality and systemic racism in law enforcement.
From the report:
The death of African American George Floyd in police custody and the ensuing U.S. protests have for weeks dominated media coverage from Russian state-sponsored outlets like RT and Sputnik. Only now, it seems that Russia, through the English-language RT in particular, is reaching out to U.S. police officers and union officials, in what some U.S. officials and lawmakers say is…
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