A plea hearing revealed a far larger
pattern of fraud against the government, while keeping some key secrets still
hidden.
·
Former
CIA officer David J. Rush pleaded guilty to wire fraud in federal court in
Virginia.
·
Prosecutors
said his schemes involved more than $193
million, including:
o A fake secret program used to obtain 298 gold bars, costing
the government more than $46
million.
o A plan to use about $145 million in
government-linked funds to buy luxury properties in South Florida.
o Roughly $1.8 million in government-paid private
charter flights with no legitimate purpose.
·
Rush
also admitted to disclosing identifying details about a U.S. clandestine human
source to a foreign government official.
·
Authorities
say he invented the classified program and misled colleagues and a government
contractor to obtain funds and gold.
·
The
case emerged after investigators searched his Virginia home and found the gold
bars; the broader schemes were uncovered after his arrest.
·
Rush
faces up to 20 years in
prison. Sentencing is scheduled for January.
A
former C.I.A. officer who the authorities say stashed hundreds of gold bars in
his home admitted in court on Tuesday to a far larger web of deception,
including a $145 million scam involving luxury real estate and providing
sensitive intelligence to a foreign government official.
The
shocking details of the case were revealed in federal court in Alexandria, Va.,
where David J. Rush pleaded guilty to a single count of wire fraud, which could
earn him up to 20 years behind bars.
The
new details of his crimes, however, far surpassed what had been previously
known about the unusual case, even as they in some ways deepened the mystery of
an episode at the heart of America’s intelligence community that has been
cloaked in secrecy.
Those
crimes included his admission in court that he had shared the identity of a
human source with a foreign government, a grave violation of what is among the
C.I.A.’s most highly protected secrets.
John
Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, said Mr. Rush had “abused his position and
betrayed the public trust and should be held fully accountable for his
actions.”
Mr.
Rush, a 49-year-old former intelligence officer, was arrested in May after
investigators found roughly 300 gold bars stashed in the basement of his
Virginia home. U.S. officials have previously said he created a fake classified
program — one that only a few people were permitted to know about — that
allowed him to accumulate the bars, worth more than $40 million.
In
court on Tuesday, a federal prosecutor, Kevin Hakala, described far more
sweeping and potentially consequential crimes beyond the gold bar scam. In all,
the schemes totaled more than $193 million in fraud.
In
October 2025, Mr. Rush used his “position of trust” as a senior C.I.A. officer
to create a fake secret government program to purchase roughly $145 million
worth of “luxury real estate in South Florida,” Mr. Hakala said. All the luxury
properties were in the Palm Beach area, according to court papers.
The
funds for the purchases were transferred to a holding company by a government
contractor who expected to be reimbursed, officials said. Mr. Rush planned to
also have expensive renovations done on the properties so they could be resold
for profit, the prosecutor said.
Separately,
in 2025, Mr. Rush knowingly disclosed “certain descriptive information of a
U.S. government clandestine human source” to a “foreign government official,”
Mr. Hakala told Judge Michael S. Nachmanoff of the
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Prosecutors
did not explain further, and a portion of Mr. Rush’s guilty plea was conducted
under seal. Court papers, however, say that on April 28, during an interview
conducted by the C.I.A., Mr. Rush admitted to disclosing the information to a
foreign official.
Mr.
Rush also orchestrated a scheme in which he arranged to take roughly $1.8
million in private charter flights, paid for by the government, that had no
legitimate purpose, prosecutors said.
After
prosecutors recounted his crimes in open court, Mr. Rush, wearing an olive green prison jumpsuit, agreed that he had committed
those acts.
A
lawyer for Mr. Rush declined to comment outside court. His sentencing was
scheduled for January.
Officials
say they learned about the full details of Mr. Rush’s schemes after he was
arrested.
When
F.B.I. agents first searched his house, they said they found 303 gold bars. In
court on Tuesday, prosecutors said that the correct number was 298 gold bars,
and that they had cost the government more than $46 million to obtain. As part
of that scheme, Mr. Rush told colleagues that he had given the gold to others
as part of the secret program, when in fact he had taken them from his office
in Loudoun County, Va., to his home nearby.
“The
program did not exist,” Mr. Hakala said in court.
People
familiar with the investigation had said Mr. Rush’s fake top secret program to
obtain the gold bars was supposedly related to “continuity of government
operations.” That term usually refers to the government being able to operate
during a national disaster or an attack.
Mr.
Rush “read in” two colleagues to the program in a manner that prevented them
from talking to others about it. Then he persuaded one of them to transfer
millions of dollars to the program via a fraudulent government contract, the
people said.
According
to court documents, Mr. Rush requested and received “a significant quantity of
foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for work-related
expenses” from last November to March.
A
public trial of Mr. Rush was always unlikely, given the sensitive nature of his
work.
At
the time of his arrest, he was at work on highly classified programs for both
the C.I.A. and the Pentagon that government officials wanted to keep under
wraps.
Mr.
Rush had worked closely with Stephen A. Feinberg, the deputy secretary of defense, for years. Before the C.I.A. fired Mr. Rush, the
two had collaborated on a highly classified program focused on spying on China.
When
the C.I.A. began investigating Mr. Rush, Mr. Feinberg reached out to the agency
to vouch for Mr. Rush’s work for the Pentagon.
The
investigation of Mr. Rush, according to people briefed on the events, began
with the C.I.A. opening an espionage inquiry. That work eventually uncovered
the fraud that led to the charges and the plea deal on Tuesday.