A former CIA officer in Virginia who is accused of taking tens of millions of dollars in gold bars and foreign currency from the agency was ordered Friday to remain in jail until his trial.
The man, David Rush, has been charged with one count of theft of public money. His lawyers argued Friday that the gold bars were all accounted for and the current charges are related to what they equated to time-card fraud.
The FBI alleges Rush became a senior executive government employee with top-secret clearance by lying repeatedly on applications about his military service and education and falsely saying he was a Navy pilot and had advanced degrees.
Questions remain as to how an agency that claims to be one of the top spy apparatuses in the world failed to account for the money or catch Rush’s many allegedly false claims on four different applications reviewed by the agency.
Several lower level CIA employees have been placed on leave and other more senior officers were reassigned over how they managed Rush’s requests for money or failing to catch initial internal flags that his requests may not have been a legitimate part of his work, according to a source familiar with the matter.
