New in SpyWeek: CIA Gold Heist, More Kash Cuts at FBI, Trump’s Gushy Tulsi Goodbye

Also, Prominent Texan name in espionage case, intel confusion about Hormuz, Chinese hackers exploit Iran war, more

David Rush booking photo

Goldfinger: How about that wild story of David John Rush, the former CIA executive accused of pilfering “a significant quantity of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for work-related expenses”? Reports said Rush, a veteran of 17 years at the spy agency, squirreled away the loot between Nov. 2025 and just this past March, when some $40 million worth of gold bars, each weighing about 2.2 pounds, were discovered in his home.

We have questions. Did he just load them into his Cybertruck or whatever and drive them home? Employ a Brinks-style CIA vehicle? And what were those “work-related expenses” his bosses found so persuasive? Covert action of some sort, goes the guess. He must’ve been a great story teller, with dim bosses. But curious minds want to know why the CIA has hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gold bars piled up in some warehouse in Virginia.

A few former CIA execs we reached out to on deadline were flummoxed. One familiar with bribes shelled out for various things, from a foreign adversary’s military secrets to, say, a Chinese MiG-19, couldn’t recall gold bars being the method of payment. Another possibility: financing an as-yet-to-come (or wished for) regime change in, say, Iran. Another suspected “criminal” intentions. Meanwhile, we wonder how long the CIA (and other intel agencies) will keep relying so much on pseudoscientific polygraphs, which Rush reportedly passed, to trip up miscreants and traitors. Practiced liars can too easily beat the tests, while innocent people too often get accused of lying. CIA’s screeners reviewing Rush’s employment application evidently didn’t ever pick up a phone and double check his stated educational and military records, most of which he made up, until it was too late. (NBC)

China Tool: The namesake son of a former chairman of the Texas Republican Party was arrested last February and charged with acting as an agent of the Chinese government. Tom Pauken II, who lived and worked for more than a decade as a journalist of sorts in China, writing under the pen name Tom McGregor, allegedly “prepared confidential reports that his Chinese handler told him were being conveyed to Chinese President Xi Jinping,” according to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court. It seems also that the FBI tried to use Pauken as a “double agent” against another American targeted for recruitment by the Chinese who was “seeking a job in the Trump administration.” The unnamed individual “was not hired for the exact job he wanted in the administration but currently works for a U.S. government agency,” the FBI affidavit said. Hmmm…we suspect another shoe will drop sooner or later. Pauken’s father Tom was an Army intelligence officer during the Vietnam war who later got involved in rightwing Texas politics and once ran for governor.

Tom Pauken II (YouTube screenshot)

The Long Goodbye: President Trump gave outgoing DNI Tulsi Gabbard a chef’s kiss of sorts in Wednesday’s cabinet meeting, saying she “worked tirelessly to restore trust and focus” within the intelligence community during her tenure (even though he was widely reported to have stopped listening to her last year). “She dramatically reformed the office of Director of National Intelligence,” Trump went on, apparently referencing her firing of several career officials who contradicted White House propaganda on Venezuela and other issues. “She exposed mountains of evidence related to the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax,” he added, an apparent nod to her outlandish referral of Obama officials to the DOJ for prosecution on charges of treason. Gabbard said she was leaving June 30 to take care of her cancer-stricken husband, but others said she was adamantly opposed to Trump’s unprovoked Iran war. (IANS)

Tulsi, we hardly knew ye. (White House photo).

Kash Accounting: Trump’s retribution campaign continues at the FBI, where Director Kash Patel has fired a senior intelligence analyst who assessed a crazed man’s 2017 attack on a congressional Republican baseball team as an act of “suicide by cop” rather than “domestic terrorism.” Sources told NBC that Deputy Assistant Director Emily Morales “received a letter from Patel on Friday ending her FBI employment, after which she turned in her badge and was ‘walked out’ by FBI security, as is standard practice.” She’s hardly the first to fall into MAGA disfavor at the FBI, of course. “MS NOW reported five months ago that Tonya Ugoretz, who was the assistant director in charge of the Intelligence Directorate, was removed because of her role in withdrawing a thinly sourced intelligence report alleging that China tried to flood the United States with fake driver’s licenses in order to promote fraud in the 2020 election.”

Strait Story: Is the Strait of Hormuz mined or not? Back in late February, “U.S. intelligence officials believed that Iran placed mines on the southern side of the strait either before the conflict began or in its early days, sources told NBC News. “They said there have also been numerous intelligence reports from the United States and its allies about Iran placing mines in various locations in the strait.” But none have been found. “The military searches using underwater drones, water robots and manned and unmanned aircraft have found some objects that could be mines, but none have been definitively identified, those sources said.”

Don’t miss the latest SpyTalk podcast, featuring former Obama national security aide and popular Pod Save America co-host Tommy Vietor on revitalizing Democrats on U.S. foreign policies and strategy.

Epic Fury-Beijing Style “Hacking groups linked to China have exploited the war in the Middle East in attempts to compromise maritime and energy companies in the region, cybersecurity researchers at ESET have warned.” Of course they did. “Chinese espionage and hacking operations also continue to target organizations around the world, in line with Beijing’s interests. This included targeting of government organizations in Central America and an attempted espionage campaign against an AI and robotics company in South Korea.” (InfoSecurity)

Enemy Within: Erstwhile Arcadia, Calif. Mayor Eileen Wang pleaded guilty in federal court Friday to working as a Chinese agent. In her plea deal she admitted “she worked with the PRC to boost propaganda with a fake news website on U.S. soil between 2020 and 2022,” local ABC7 reported.

AI Intelligence: In the wake of Jan6 the Capitol Police created an intelligence arm, which is now “warning that legislators are in danger from an angry public” due to rising popular resistance to the rapid proliferation of energy-sucking, rates-rising AI data centers, reports Ken Klippenstein. “The U.S. Capitol Police Intelligence Services Bureau, created…in parallel to the 18-member Executive Branch intelligence community, laid out the warning in an internal intelligence report produced in April.”