John Minchillo/AP; Rachel Mendelson/Insider
The case of Charles McGonigal is bigger than one corrupt FBI agent.
In fact, it's bigger than the entire FBI.
The legal case against Charles McGonigal, the FBI's former New York counterintelligence chief — a scandal that launched a thousand conspiracy theories — is beginning to wind down. Last week, a judge in the Southern District of New York sentenced McGonigal to 50 months in prison; a second judge in Washington, DC, is expected to sentence McGonigal on a different set of charges in February.
But the bigger story — about transnational flows of money, intelligence, and influence, and the weakness of the legal and ethical firewalls that are supposed to constrain them — is just beginning.