Thread by @codyave

"Exclusive: The FBI's McGonigal labyrinth"

#guerriero
businessinsider.com/fbi-charlie-mc…

"Guerriero still remembers the day McGonigal bought a second phone. The FBI had just ordered its staff to delete WhatsApp from their bureau-issued phones, and McGonigal was panicking. No longer could he send encrypted messages to whomever he was texting with. That was a problem."

"So McGonigal went out and bought a second iPhone to use on the side. He used it almost exclusively for WhatsApp. Guerriero would tease McGonigal about it. 'What are you, a drug dealer now? With a burner phone?' she said. But she never found out who McGonigal was messaging."

"The iPhone wasn't the only curious thing she saw during her time with McGonigal. There were the sealed envelopes he'd be handed when they had dinner with a friend of his, an older man named Sergey Shestakov."

"Guerriero and McGonigal would sometimes join Shestakov and his wife at pro hockey games. They would party with a group in a private box. Guerriero didn't know whose box it was, or who was picking up the bill. She never saw McGonigal pay."

"On other nights, Shestakov would take McGonigal and Guerriero out to dinner. The two men would make small talk about traffic and the weather. Shestakov would ask McGonigal about his kids. Then, in the middle of dinner, Shestakov would casually hand McGonigal a manila envelope."

"It happened three or four times while Guerriero and McGonigal dated, from mid-2017 to late 2018. The envelopes always passed from Shestakov to McGonigal, not the other way around. And Shestakov, Guerriero recalls, would always pick up the bill."

"In New York, McGonigal was welcomed into a select circle of New York law-enforcement dons who dined out at Sparks, Peter Luger, and, in the old days, Elaine's. One steakhouse on the circuit had a framed photo of McGonigal hanging on the wall."

"Those restaurant tables were connected to a darker, more mysterious world inhabited by the spies and oligarchs who gather in the shadows of New York to do business, trade secrets, and purchase loyalties. It was McGonigal's job to dominate this world."

"'He was out of his element here,' Guerriero said of their year together in New York. 'He wasn't prepared for all this money, all these power players. He should have stayed in his cute little suburb, mowing his lawn, playing his softball games.'"

"Three sources said the FBI had been looking into McGonigal by November 2019, which is when Guerriero says she wrote an angry email to William Sweeney, McGonigal's boss. That email, which Insider was unable to obtain, said to look into McGonigal's Albania work and personal life."

"McGonigal came off as an ordinary executive-level FBI agent — a centrist Republican who drove neighborhood kids to school events in his minivan. A neighbor saw copies of The Economist around his house in Maryland. In New York, Guerriero occasionally saw him watching Fox News."

"There was one thing McGonigal did that struck Guerriero as weird at the time. It involved vodka."

"He had just picked her up in the G-car at her father's house in New Jersey. On their way to Brooklyn, they planned to stop at the Short Hills Mall. In a few days McGonigal would be flying to Vienna for some meetings. It was cold in Vienna. McGonigal needed to buy a winter coat."

"A few days earlier, McGonigal had asked Guerriero to join him for the trip. An all-expenses-paid vacation, he said, would help take her mind off pressing health issues. She had a cancer diagnosis and a double mastectomy scheduled in a few weeks."

"That night, driving in the G-car, Guerriero found McGonigal to be quiet, a bundle of nervous energy. On their way to the mall, she asked him to make a quick stop at Staples to pick up a print job. She went in, picked it up, and returned to the car, where McGonigal was waiting."

"'I ran into the liquor store,' she recalled him saying. He took out a tiny bottle of vodka, the size that's offered on airplanes, and took a sip. Then he screwed the top back on, dropped the bottle in the cupholder, and pulled out into traffic."

"'What are you doing?' she shouted. 'You can't drink and drive in a G-car!' 'It's fine,' McGonigal replied. 'I've had a long day. I needed something to calm my nerves.' By the time they got to the mall, he had finished it off."

"Guerriero still doesn't understand why McGonigal invited her to Vienna. Maybe he wanted someone he trusted to come along for the ride. But she said no. 'I can't go to Vienna,' Guerriero told him. 'I got too much shit to do. I don't even have a valid passport. Mine's expired.'"