The CIA official accused of hoarding more than $40 million in gold bars in his Ashburn, Virginia, home created a phony spy program to enrich himself, according to several reports.
David John Rush created a fake “special access program” whose functioning and purpose were largely shielded from other CIA employees, according to The New York Times.
Mr. Rush’s clandestine program was pitched as a way to keep the federal government running during a major catastrophe, such as nuclear war, according to an intelligence official who spoke with the newspaper.
Instead, the program was used to persuade a government defense contractor to purchase large amounts of gold, according to The Washington Post.
FBI agents discovered 303 gold bars when they raided Mr. Rush’s home last month and roughly $2 million in foreign currency and 35 luxury watches.
Charging documents said Mr. Rush acquired the gold through money order requests with the federal government between November and March. The FBI admitted it was unable to locate all of the gold and foreign currency Mr. Rush had requested.
The CIA placed multiple senior officials on leave after they were linked to fulfilling Mr. Rush’s money orders, NBC News reported.
Defense attorneys for Mr. Rush said he is only being charged with the time card fraud he committed while with the agency.
The filing says Mr. Rush cost the federal government roughly $77,000 for taking leave related to his military service, despite the defendant having been out of the armed forces for more than a decade.
Prosecutors said Mr. Rush lied about being a Navy test pilot and about helping run an aircraft weapons testing team for the Army and the Navy.
He also fabricated his education credentials, with South Carolina’s Clemson University and New York state’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute telling prosecutors they had no record of Mr. Rush completing his studies at either college.
The affidavit said Mr. Rush referenced his fake undergraduate degree from Clemson to enlist in the Navy in 1997. He was honorably discharged from the service in February 2015 at the rank of lieutenant.
U.S. District Court Judge William Fitzpatrick ordered Mr. Rush to be kept behind bars until his trial during a Friday court hearing, citing his 17 years with the CIA as a reason to consider him a flight risk.
“He’s in a different position than most people to flee and avoid detection by law enforcement,” Judge Fitzpatrick said.
