THE CIA’S INSANE GOLD BARS SCANDAL. Here is the basic story, as alleged in an affidavit filed in federal court:
In 2009, a man named David Rush, a Navy veteran, took a job at the CIA. As part of the application process, he told the CIA that he had a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from Clemson University, when in fact he had never attended or obtained a degree from Clemson University. Rush also told the CIA he had a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, when in fact he had never attended or obtained a degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Rush also told the CIA he had been a Navy test pilot, when in fact he had served in the Navy but was never a pilot of any sort.
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CIA officials apparently never caught any of these falsehoods when they hired Rush. On Nov. 20, 2009, when, as a new employee, he submitted an application to obtain the highest possible security clearance, Top Secret/Secure Compartmented Information, Rush again claimed to have degrees from Clemson and Rensselaer. He received the clearance.
Rush moved up the ranks of the CIA. In 2018, he applied to enter the Senior Executive Service, which would place him at the top level — and among the highest paid — of agency workers. In that application, Rush “stated he was a graduate of the United States Air Force Test Pilot School, and he was the current Director of Test for a 145-person, 18-aircraft joint Army/Navy weapons test organization,” according to the affidavit. The affidavit continued: “In this same application, Rush stated he had an eleven-year tenure as a Thesis/Dissertation advisor at the Air Force Institute of Technology.” None of that was true. Nevertheless, the CIA promoted Rush.
During this time, the affidavit said, Rush also continued to claim leave pay for military service even though he was no longer in the Navy. Government records “indicate that, since being honorably discharged in February 2015, Rush has claimed 744 hours of military leave on his official timesheet, representing approximately $77,000 in compensation,” the affidavit said. That, if known at the CIA, did not stop Rush’s move into the senior executive ranks.
Then, starting in November 2025, Rush allegedly did something astonishing, more striking than anything he had done before. According to the affidavit, “Rush made several requests to the U.S. Government to obtain a significant quantity of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for work-related expenses.”
And the CIA gave it to him! Officials began handing Rush money and gold. Only later did someone begin to wonder what was going on. The CIA then searched a storage space in Rush’s office but found “only a portion of the currency” that he had been given. Government officials were “unable to locate the gold bars or significant amounts of the foreign currency Rush received pursuant to his requests or to identify the intended use of these funds,” the affidavit said.
At that point, it appears that light bulbs finally started going off at the CIA. Officials there notified the FBI, which on May 18 conducted a search of Rush’s home in Virginia. “During the search, FBI agents seized approximately 303 gold bars, each of which weighs approximately one kilogram,” the affidavit said. “Based on the current price of gold, the estimated value of the gold exceeds $40 million.” Agents also found $2 million in U.S. currency.
Rush is now under arrest. His story raises a number of critical questions. How did the CIA — remember that the middle initial stands for “Intelligence” — allow itself to be defrauded so easily and so often? How did it not discover, just in the routine course of hiring, the nonexistent college degrees, the test-pilot fraud, and the rest of the lies in Rush’s job and security clearance applications?
And then, the money angle defies description. Was this the CIA, or Fort Knox? How in the world did officials give Rush 303 gold bars? For what purpose did they believe he intended to use them? And the foreign currency? And the U.S. currency? It appears that all Rush had to do was to make one wild request after another, for more gold bars and more currency, and the CIA said, “Sure, David, here you go.”
FBI ARRESTS CIA OFFICIAL WHO SNATCHED OVER $40 MILLION IN GOLD BARS
And what was Rush’s plan? The affidavit said FBI agents discovered 35 luxury watches at his home, most of them Rolexes, but that doesn’t seem to cover the spending possibilities for a person in Rush’s position. His story carries obvious national security concerns, given that he worked with the highest clearance at the nation’s top spy agency.
Finally, the case is devastating news for the CIA. How could anyone have any confidence in an agency that repeatedly does things that are so self-evidently stupid? How could this have happened? John Ratcliffe, the Trump administration’s CIA director, clearly has a lot of work and explaining to do.
