FPI / September 24, 2025
A former FBI official who is currently serving time in prison alerted the head of a Chinese company linked to the Biden family of a major federal investigation into the Bidens, according to a Department of Justice inspector general report.
Charles McGonigal, the FBI’s senior counterintelligence official in New York had leaked details of the bureau’s investigation of China Energy Fund Committee (CEFC) to its top executive Patrick Ho, who was convicted in federal court of bribing African officials in 2019.
Those damaging details were disclosed for the first time on Sept. 2 by the Justice Department inspector general and are the latest in a series of highly damaging internal security cases for the FBI counterintelligence section as noted in this report.
Former President Joe Biden’s son Hunter and brother James Biden were paid $4.8 million by CEFC in 2017 and 2018, according to congressional investigators.
Hunter Biden once described Ho, the vice chairman of CEFC as his client and the “f–—— spy chief of China,” according to a House investigation of the Bidens.
McGonigal in 2023 was sentenced to six-and-half years in prison for relatively minor offenses of hiding material facts from investigators and violating economic laws as part of a plea agreement.
His crime was colluding with a Russian oligarch to evade U.S. sanctions, security correspondent Bill Gertz reported for the Washington Times.
However, the FBI never disclosed publicly that McGonigal had leaked details of the bureau’s investigation of China Energy Fund Committee to its top executive Patrick Ho.
According to the IG report, the FBI questioned a retired Secret Service agent working as a private investigator who told the FBI that James Biden asked him in 2017 to find out if there was an arrest warrant out for Ho.
In cryptic language, the IG report said McGonigal was in charge of an FBI investigation into CEFC and told an Albanian official working for the Chinese company in June 2017 “something to the effect of ’we are looking into them’ or ’we are going after them,’ ” according to the Albanian official, only identified as “Person B,” in a 2022 proffer interview.
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