Senate Judiciary to Question AG Garland

On Wednesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a regularly scheduled oversight hearing. It’s scheduling is likely to be the only thing ordinary about it. And it’s not just Republicans who will make it unusual. The Democratic majority would like some answers, too. From Business Insider:

Democrats, meanwhile, have raised questions about gun control, criminal justice reform, and solitary confinement in federal prisons. Capitol Hill has already asked Garland for answers regarding the case of former FBI agent Charles McGonigal, who ran counterintelligence in the bureau’s New York field office.

On February 7, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, sent Garland a letter on the subject of McGonigal’s arrest. Central to that case is McGonigal’s relationship with Oleg Deripaska—the Zelig of the Volga Bagmen who circled the 2016 presidential election, a former employer of Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, and, it appears, the once and future employer of one Charles McGonigal.

Whitehouse’s letter points out that McGonigal was special agent in charge of the counterintelligence division in the FBI’s New York field office in 2016. You may recall the suspicions that it was the New York office who was yanking director James Comey’s leash leading up to the 11th-hour reopening of the case of Hillary Clinton’s server practice, a final deciding twist in that election. Whitehouse recalls all of this:

Because McGonigal was the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s New York Field Office counterintelligence division in the weeks leading to the 2016 election, he may have knowledge of or have participated in political activities to damage then-candidate Hillary Clinton and help then-candidate Donald Trump. For instance, during that time period, Rudy Giuliani announced that a “big surprise” related to Secretary Clinton would be forthcoming from the FBI, hinting he received that information from the New York Field Office. The very next day, Director James Comey, reportedly bowing to internal pressure from that office, broke the FBI’s ordinary policy of declining to comment on ongoing matters close to an election and announced the FBI would reopen its investigation into Secretary Clinton’s use of a private email server in light of the discovery of emails on Anthony Weiner’s laptop.The situation is even more troubling given that McGonigal was arrested for, among other things, allegedly working with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, whom McGonigal was assigned to investigate while working for the FBI. Deripaska, a known associate of Trump 2016 campaign chairman Paul Manafort, was sanctioned for interfering with the 2016 presidential election to help Donald Trump.

That matter is the coleslaw gone bad in the back of the national refrigerator. There never has been a satisfactory resolution to questions about the New York FBI’s involvement in the “But Her Emails” angle of the 2016 election. For that matter, there never has been a satisfactory resolution to questions around the Russian rat-fckers’ involvement in that same misbegotten exercise. It doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to see the relationship between McGonigal and Deripaska as a possible key to all of these questions. Or, as Whitehouse put it in his letter:

All of this is potentially embarrassing to the FBI, making it vital that any plea be accompanied by a full debrief and that someone outside the organization lead any debrief that takes place. Please provide assurances that the FBI will not be put in a position to obscure any misconduct that might have occurred within its ranks.

Given McGonigal’s hefty portfolio at FBI, an investigation into his activities could lead almost anywhere. Whitehouse is clearly in for the long haul.

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