How can anyone trust the CIA to get anything right after this?
Fine, the agency finally took a hard look at employee David Rush after he requisitioned and took home 300 kilos of gold and millions of dollars in foreign currency, according to an FBI affidavit, but it failed to check his faked resumé for over 15 years before that.
That not only boosted his pay and helped him win promotions, it won him extra leave.
This isn’t swiping a few pens from the supply closet, or stretching out lunchtime 15 minutes; it looks more like grand larceny.
It’s not clear exactly what Rush was up to — and don’t be too surprised if the details remain muddy — but nothing can explain how anyone in the intelligence community can request $40 million in gold bars “for work-related expenses” … and just get it.
As for the resumé: All anyone needed to do was check records at another branch of the government, the US Navy, plus at universities whose registrars confirm academic records all the time.
What, if anything, is the CIA vetting about its hires?
The ones who run America’s spy operations and give our leaders intelligence and analysis about the abilities and intentions of the nation’s enemies and potential allies.
Rush is now in jail on charges linked to the resumé-padding: He allegedly claimed to have degrees from Clemson University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, though he never attended either, per court papers, and also falsely said he’d been a Navy pilot.
Did the CIA not even investigate his military record when vetting his security clearance?
The failures here are too numerous for this to be a one-off case; the incompetence has to be practically institutionalized.
The “intelligence community” lost a lot of luster after its top officials abused their power to fan the phony Russiagate scandal flames, and then four dozen of its best and brightest signed the infamous letter wrongly calling Hunter Biden’s laptop a likely Russian disinformation op.
But now the nation needs to question the intelligence of everyone working for the Central so-called Intelligence Agency.
