There's stealing; then there is blatant, incompetent stealing. A former CIA official would appear to have identified himself as one of the latter. Last week, the FBI staged a raid on the home of one David Rush, recovering over 300 gold bars, $2,000,000 in cash, and over three dozen Rolex watches.
It's how he came by all that which is interesting.
A former high-ranking CIA official who allegedly lied about his credentials to secure $77,000 in bogus military leave was busted after FBI agents found a mind-blowing fortune, including $40 million worth of gold bars, hidden inside his Virginia home.
The feds conducted a raid at the residence of David Rush last week, uncovering a staggering 303 gold bars, $2 million in cash and nearly three dozen luxury Rolex watches, according to court documents.
Rush, until recently a “senior executive service-level employee” at the CIA, reportedly requested the massive haul of gold and foreign currency for “work-related expenses” between November and March.
And they gave it to him? Seriously, the CIA should (we should hope) have a pretty strict process to go through before just handing over $40 million in gold bullion. But, it didn't take long for the Agency to catch up to the fraudster.
When the agency conducted a routine audit, the assets were missing from official custody, prompting the CIA director to refer the matter to federal investigators.
“After a CIA internal investigation identified potential violations of the law, CIA Director John Ratcliffe referred the information to the FBI for a law enforcement investigation,” the FBI said in a statement.
“The FBI is working closely with our partners at the CIA and the Department of Justice as we continue to investigate this matter fully,” the statement continued.
All this begs the question: In what universe did David Rush think there was any way he was going to get away with this? This isn't about pilfering office supplies or skimming a few hundred from a cash seizure. David Rush is accused of fraud on a near-cosmic scale. What was he thinking? That the CIA, whose entire function it is to gather information, wouldn't notice $40 million in gold bars just evaporating? And it's not like one can just run gold bars down to the bank and deposit them in one's checking account. What was he planning?
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Rush is reportedly now facing at least one serious charge. It seems likely there will be more.
Rush was charged with one count of stealing public money. In an unusual criminal complaint, the FBI accuses Rush of taking the gold bars, "obtaining a fraudulently inflated salary and fraudulently obtaining military leave" and making a litany of false statements about his background. The complaint does not specify exactly what alleged conduct led to the charges.
This isn't just stealing. This appears to be greedy and incompetent stealing by someone who is also accused of fabricating a lot of the credentials that resulted in his being in a position to carry out the greedy and incompetent stealing.
The takeaway from all this? Defrauding the taxpayers seems to be more pervasive than perhaps we thought. But at least, this accused fraudster is being held to account.
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