Former CIA officer accused of stashing gold bars ordered to remain jailed pending trial

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The former CIA officer who was found with $40 million in gold bars stashed at his Virginia home was in court Friday, where a judge ordered him held behind bars until he goes on trial for criminal theft of public money. David Rush, a senior CIA officer who worked on one of the most highly sensitive programs in the U.S. government, watched as prosecutors and his defense attorney sparred in a Virginia courtroom over whether he should remain in jail. Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick sided with the government and ordered that Rush remain detained in the Alexandria Detention Center. “He is in a different position than most people,” Fitzpatrick said, noting his risk of flight and the high level of danger he could pose to the community. Looking unshaven and wearing a dark green jumpsuit with “Alexandria inmate” emblazoned on the back, Rush did not show any visible reaction. Rush, 49, has also been accused by the government of lying about his work experience and education for nearly two decades, according to court records on file in the Eastern District of Virginia. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gavin Tisdale called Rush a “master manipulator” and a “tremendous fraud” who lied about nearly every aspect of his professional career. Rush’s attorney Jessica Carmichael, arguing that her client should be released pending trial, focused on his only being charged with one count of theft of public funds and his cooperation with the FBI when they searched his home. Every gold bar Rush allegedly took from the CIA has been accounted for, prosecutors said. “This is about $65,000 worth of time card fraud,” Carmichael said. She noted that her client was being held in solitary confinement due to media attention surrounding his case and said he is only allowed out for two hours a day. Rush was arrested on May 19 after FBI agents raided his Virginia home and found about 303 gold bars, $2 million in cash, and more than 30 luxury watches, according to the court affidavit. It wasn’t immediately clear when Rush left the agency, but in the wake of his arrest the CIA put several senior officials who handled the high-ranking officer on administrative leave. Meanwhile, the arrest has raised questions about how effective the government has been at vetting applicants for jobs like the management position that Rush held, which comes with top secret-level clearance. Rush is accused of filing fraudulent time sheets by falsely claiming he was a member of the Navy Reserve. Between November and March of this year, Rush had requested and received from the CIA a large amount of foreign currency and gold bars for “work-related expenses,” the court papers say. But, according to the papers, when government officials checked Rush’s office they found that “only a portion of the currency he received remained in the storage space.” A CIA employee for about 17 years, Rush was most recently a liaison to the Defense Department for a sensitive nuclear submarine program, NBC News has reported. Rush was given that assignment at the request of Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, with whom Rush had a close professional relationship over the years, according to four people familiar with the two men. Feinberg, who has not been accused of wrongdoing, was a major donor to President Donald Trump’s campaigns and founded the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management. Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell has denied that Rush and Feinberg had “a close relationship of any kind.” In a previous statement to NBC News, Parnell said that Feinberg “never supported Mr. Rush’s career at any point in his life, nor did he endorse Mr. Rush for any career position.” Rush applied to work with the government three times. In his first application, Rush falsely claimed he graduated from Clemson University in 2000. In his second application, he added that he had a graduate degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. On his third try, in 2009, he succeeded, and he included those degrees and an aircraft test from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School, according to court documents. In applications for promotions, he said he’d been a thesis adviser at the Air Force Institute of Technology. Rush also told employers he was a pilot for the Navy. None of it was true, according to the charges; he didn’t graduate from the schools, and investigators say the Federal Aviation Administration doesn’t have a certificate or a pilot’s license registered to Rush.