The C.I.A. officer arrested last week with more than $40 million in gold bars in his home once worked with Stephen A. Feinberg, now the deputy secretary of defense, according to current and former U.S. officials.
David Rush, 49, a C.I.A. officer for 17 years, was a part of the agency’s Directorate of Science and Technology, and held a relatively senior rank before he was arrested on May 18, according to current and former officials.
They do not appear to have worked closely together, but Mr. Rush appears to have first had contact with Mr. Feinberg on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, according to officials. Mr. Feinberg, the founder of Cerberus Capital Management, was the chair of the advisory board in the first Trump administration.
The board is charged with providing advice to the White House and to spy agencies on intelligence collection and other matters.
Some of the officials said Mr. Rush and Mr. Feinberg were not close. But Mr. Feinberg has long taken an interest in technology developed by the C.I.A. He has also paid close attention to the agency’s Directorate of Science and Technology, both when he was on the advisory board and once he took the No. 2 job at the Pentagon.
What Mr. Rush was doing with the gold bars, and why the C.I.A. issued them to him, remains a mystery.
Former U.S. officials said that Mr. Rush had to have been working on a covert program to gain access to so much money.
Mr. Feinberg and the Pentagon had no involvement in whatever Mr. Rush was doing that led to his obtaining the gold bars, according to people briefed on the investigation.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The C.I.A. declined to comment. Mr. Rush’s ties to Mr. Feinberg were earlier reported by NBC News.
Mr. Rush is being held in jail, after he was charged with stealing public money by filling out fraudulent time sheets.
In court papers, the government accused Mr. Rush of inflating his academic credentials and lying about his work history.
But the legal action against Mr. Rush raised far more questions than it answered.
From last November to March, according to the court papers, Mr. Rush asked for, and received, tens of millions of dollars in gold bars and foreign currency for “work-related expenses.”
When the C.I.A. conducted a review of where the gold and currency were stashed, the agency was unable to locate them, according to court papers.
Alerted by the C.I.A., the F.B.I. searched Mr. Rush’s home and found 303 gold bars, each weighing about 2.2 pounds.
Julian E. Barnes covers the U.S. intelligence agencies and international security matters for The Times. He has written about security issues for more than two decades.
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