Josh Marshall provides the analysis that so far, the charges haven't described him acting for foreign powers before he retired. But there is some implication and that may emerge too.
I look forward to watching Rich Lowrey stand in line to apologize to Rachel Maddow.
Wow, that link in 3 is stupid.
I sometimes think back to how Kushner got busted trying to set up a secret back channel to the Russians before Trump was even sworn in. Haha, isn't it funny how things get forgotten?
It is remarkable how deep the treason is baked into the Republican Party and how little it seems to matter to voters.
His getting the position in the NY office in 2016 seems to be just before the election so not really clear he would have had any role (and maybe Comey was putting him there in response). Per 1 and what I've seen from JM it is hard to say to what extent this is more than just some shady cash-making. However, the dude ahs been around some significant stuff such as trying to identify why so many sources were being compromised ~ 2010, the Wikileaks thing that led to Chelsea Manning, and even Sandy Berger (docs from the National Archives* stuffed in pants). It does strike me that to be the sort of person who enjoys/is good at that stuff is probably the sort willing to try to make some on the side--not a very original thought I guess.
*Speaking of fucking documents, one of our bright press bulbs asked the press secretary if she could guarantee that no classified docs would be taken when Biden and Harris left office. Just such self-satisfied useless fucking assholes.
6. !!!! eg for Shady cash making is some NFTs or insider trading. Accepting money from Deripaska for a person with a clearance is much much worse than sticky fingers or off-the-books lobbying (itself a real crime). IMO working in counterintelligence imposes a genuinely high ethical standard, taking money "oh but that was later" from people you've investigated is not allowed in clean security services.
It seems like counterintelligence work offers a lot of opportunities for various kinds of corruption to the kind of person inclined to take them. It's still not clear exactly what was going on with this guy but he sure was involved in a lot of things that would include opportunities like that.
IMO working in counterintelligence imposes a genuinely high ethical standard
Do you mean the ethical standard that would ideally exist, or that does exist in an implemented way?
9. Exactly.
The other thing that struck me is that the investigation was done by the LA office, since MacGonigal had apparently so befouled not just NY but also the DC office. Conflict between branches of the security services and investigators getting paid by targets are common in much more corrupt places than the US previously. I mean, local police here get caught for having been paid, and there were a couple of agents (Hanssen, maybe more that I don't remember?), but this guy outranked them substantially. Cosigning 5, baffled about How is this quiet news?
How is this quiet news?
Nobody wants to admit that Trump was/is a wholly owned subsidiary of VVP. Corruption that starts with the sovereign is a Big Problem for any polity. Just ask Poland-Lithuania.
This is quiet news because our two national assignment-desk editors are Fox and the New York Times.
And people are speculating that McGonigal was one of the sources for this consequential piece of NYT reporting.
13. Thanks, first link fills in some relevant background. I was probably too dismissive of his potential role in the "but her emails" stuff; his role before the late October position apparently would have had him already deep in the mix. (Jesus, could Comey have been trying to assuage him? Comey as too clever-by-half dickheaded wrongness just keeps being reinforced with new revelations doesn't it.)
It would in fact be nice that the fracking Times would have something substantive on this guy. Hell, Michael Schmidt certainly would be in a position to know, but then again this guy was probably one of his sources* (and am always surprised Schmidt was not on the byline of the 2nd link). I assume they will be out with something soon but in fact are probably trying to navigate how to use what sources. But in the meantime the news that's fit and fits includes yet another fucking Dems in Disarray piece with based on the laments of the spineless such as Dick fucking Durbin. Not to mention the truly beyond parody piece by Haberman and Swan headlined "OMG. Trump Has Started Texting."
*I admit that I don't really know how it works in practice, but peering in from the outside I suspect there is some truly rotten shit that happens around deciding who's the "source" and who's that "target" of a lot of insider reporting. Just about every fucking one of Schmidt's and other reporter's sources on the HRC email mess were probably culpable of more tangible wrongdoing than HRC. I don't mean to decry leaking per se, but the judgment on how to handle what are clearly motivated leaks would be tricky at best and at the Times with their priors already set about the Clintons from their shit show '90s coverage of Whitewater, almost certainly contributed to a shitshow redux with regard to emails, Clinton Cash etc.
But don't worry, WaPo is going to enhance their "commitment to sharing an even wider range of opinions with its readers across a diversity of subjects" by after their layoffs bringing on Jim Geraghty, Ramesh Ponnuru, and Ruy Teixeira. I guess Marc Thiessen wasn't it getting it done.
My brain is now putting on loop the Spider Robinson character name "'Long-Drink' McGonnigle". Just the name; I don't remember anything about the actual character.
Minerva is hurt by the damage to the name, even with the poor spelling.
The Census enumerated the following surname counts in 2010 (case-insensitive):
McGonagle: 2,647
McGonigal: 1,803
McGonigle: 1,274
McGonagill: 250
McGonegal: 202
McGonegle: 104
The book character was the third of those above; I mistakenly doubled the n.
Interestingly, nothing in the form "MacGon*".
Very few people like asterisks that much.
And now the Times* has a pretty significant story on Barr/Durham shenanigans back in 2019/20. Included an attempt to get IG Horowitz to change his conclusion that Crossfire Hurricane was a well-predicated investigation. They also got a tip that involved potential Trump criminality (at the time it leaked that Durham was looking at potential criminality, but everyone assumed it went the other way). One of the main takeaways is how much Barr was micromanaging the investigation (which is absolutely contrary to the purported reason for having a Special Counsel)--that was evident at the time, but this really highlights that aspect.
*I rag on them all of the time and they are certainly part of the problem, but they also have the resources for actual stuff like this. Although there are certainly some elements of this it would have been good to know at the time. And just now looked at he byline and not surprisingly Charlie Savage is the lead, he is actually pretty decent on justice/law stuff.
I wonder if, in the Long Trump-Russia Story (JMM again), they are particularly motivated by feeling played by the "FBI Sees No Clear Link" story.
I don't think you can use a phrase like "Long Trump Russia Story" without a date range like (1987-2022).
21: Oops, I had forgotten that Durham only became an actual Special Counsel in October 2020 as part of the Operation Ratfuck the Likely Biden Administration so during the time described it would not be in violation of the spirit of the Special Counsel regs. Just the spirit of justice, democracy and all that there abstract who gives shit stuff.
And here's a longish article in Busimess Insider based primarily on information from a former girlfriend of McGonigal from the relevant time period. Many caveats, but as she is now an election-denying friend of Giuliani who was abusive towards McGonigal's family aster they broke up, but there overall there seems to be a fair bit of fact-checking where possible. She believes he was "apolitical" but describes a bag of cash and a general largesse.
I appreciate their line "a wife -- or "ex-wife" as he sometimes referred to her --".