https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-specter-of-2016
Now that we are informed that a central figure in the New York FBI office was willing to take money from foreign actors while on the job, this line of analysis bears some reconsideration. Objectively, FBI New York was acting in concert with Russia, ignoring or defining narrowly Russia's actions, and helping deliver the one-two punch to Clinton in October that very likely saved Trump.
When people act in the interest of a foreign power, it is sometimes for money, it is sometimes because the foreign power knows something about them, it is sometimes for ideals, and it is sometimes for no conscious motive at all what one thinks of as one's own motives have been curated, manipulated, and directed. It seems quite possible I raise it as a hypothesis that reasonable people would consider – that some mixture of these factors was at work at FBI New York in 2016.
All of these pieces of recent history must hang together in one way or another, and the fresh and shocking revelation of McGonigal's arrest is a chance for us to try to see how. Again, if these allegations are true, they will soon be surrounded by other heretofore unknown facts, which should lead us to consider the problem of election integrity in a general way. As of right now, the circumstantial evidence suggests that we consider the possibility that the FBI's reporting work in 2016, which resulted in a framing of the issue which was convenient for Trump and Russia, might have had something to do with the fact
(per the indictments) that one of its lead agents was willing to take money from foreign actors while on the job. In connection with the leaks from FBI New York late in the 2016 campaign, which had the obvious effect of harming Clinton and helping Trump, McGonigal's arrest also demands a broader rethink of the scale of the 2016 disaster. How much was FBI New York, wittingly and unwittingly, caught up in a Russian active measure?
The charges have not been proven. If they are, it would be a bit surprised if the two offenses with which McGonigal is now charged were isolated events. There is a certain danger, apparently, in seeing them this way, and letting bygones be bygones. A U.S. attorney presenting the case said that McGonigal "should have known better"; that is the kind of thing one says when a child gets a bellyache after eating too much cotton candy at the county fair; it hardly seems to correspond to the gravity of the situation.
Failing to understand the Russian threat in the 2010s was a prelude to failing to understand the Russian threat in the 2020s. And today Americans who support Russia in its war of atrocity tend to be members of the Trump family or people closely aligned with Trump, such as Giuliani. The people who helped Trump then take part in the war on Ukraine now. Consider one of the main architects of Russia's 2016 campaign to support Trump, Yevgeny Prigozhin. In 2016, his relevant position was as the head of the Internet Research Agency; they were the very people who (for example) helped spread the story about Clinton that rescued Trump from the Access Hollywood scandal. Without the Internet Research Agency covering his back, Trump would have had a much harder time in the 2016 election. Today, during the war in Ukraine, Prigozhin is now better known as the owner of Wagner, sending tens of thousands of Russian prisoners to kill and die.
The implications of the arrest go further. McGonigal had authority in sensitive investigations where the specific concern was that there was an American giving away other Americans to foreign governments. Untangling what that means will require a concern for the United States that goes beyond party loyalty. Unfortunately, some key political figures seem to be reacting to the news in the opposite spirit: suppressing the past, thereby destabilizing the future. Immediately after the McGonigal story broke, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy ejected Adam Schiff from the House intelligence committee, in a grand exhibition of indifference to national security. A veteran of that committee, Schiff has taken the time to learn about Russia. It is grotesque to exclude him at this particular moment, in the middle of a war, and at the beginning of a spy scandal.