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Trump Pardon Buries Fbi’s Secret Work For Putin’s Oligarchs

On 15 January 2026, President Donald Trump pardoned a former FBI counterintelligence agent who had refused to testify about his work for Oleg Deripaska and Dmitry Rybolovlev – two Russian oligarchs with direct ties to Vladimir Putin's inner circle. The pardon came six months after the daughter of the former agent's co-defendant, Julio Herrera Velutini, donated $3.5 million to Trump-aligned super PACs. The decision permanently sealed the record of services US intelligence officials secretly provided for sanctioned Russian networks.

Former FBI agent Mark T. Rossini's business partner – Charles McGonigal, the agency's former counterintelligence chief in New York – is currently serving more than six years in federal prison for taking Deripaska's money.

Trump's pardon extinguished the possibility that Rossini's services to the Putin-linked oligarchs might come to light, including who directed that work, and whether it connected to Rossini's involvement in a subsequent bribery scheme involving his co-defendants.

Trump's pardoning of Rossini arrived alongside clemency for the latter: former Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced, who had endorsed Trump in 2020, and Julio Herrera Velutini, a Venezuelan-Italian billionaire banker.

Their defence team included both Trump's personal attorney from the Mar-a-Lago documents case and a former senior CIA lawyer who had advised on destroying videotapes documenting the agency's torture of detainees.

The Oligarch Connection

Oleg Deripaska built his aluminium fortune with Kremlin backing and has been described by US Treasury officials as operating on Vladimir Putin's behalf. In 2018, the US Government sanctioned him for his role in Russia's interference operations.

Dmitry Rybolovlev made his fortune from shares in the Russian fertiliser giant Uralkali. He is reportedly closely linked to Yuri Trutnev, Putin's special representative in the Vladivostok region, and in 2018 was listed by the US Treasury for “closeness to the Russian regime”.

Ten years earlier, Rybolovlev purchased Trump's Palm Beach mansion for $95 million in 2008 – nearly twice what Trump had paid – in what became one of the most scrutinised real estate transactions of Trump's career.

Rossini's work for these oligarchs came through an obscure firm called “USG Security Limited”, run by British-Israeli security consultant Walter Soriano.

In June 2019, USG Security was subpoenaed by the Senate Intelligence Committee as part of its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Russian court filings later revealed that USG Security had signed a contract to provide security services for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, including direct control at Sochi International Airport during what was Putin's showcase event.

In 2023, journalists at Forensic News hoped to learn about Rossini's work by seeking Rossini's testimony in a defamation case. In response, he invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer specific questions about what his firm had performed for both oligarchs.

Magistrate Judge Robert W. Lehrburger upheld the invocation, finding Rossini's fear of prosecution reasonable given that the Justice Department was actively pursuing people who had aided Deripaska. Rossini, the judge wrote, has demonstrated reasonable ground to believe that answering the questions may fuel further criminal prosecution against him.

The Network

Rossini is part of a network of former US intelligence and law enforcement officials who cashed in their expertise for clients whose interests conflict with American policy.

Albanian corporate records show that the two FBI partners, Rossini and McGonigal, each owned 25% of a company called “Lawoffice & Investigation”.

The third partner in their Albanian venture was Agron Neza, a former Albanian intelligence officer who had handed McGonigal $225,000 in several cash instalments – some in a parked car, some at Neza's New Jersey home – while McGonigal still ran FBI counterintelligence in New York. Neza later became an FBI informant against his former partner and has not been charged.

McGonigal pleaded guilty to accepting payments from Deripaska and to concealing the $225,000 payments via Neza, while still running FBI counterintelligence.

Mark Rossini and Agron Neza in an undated photograph. Photo: Former President of Albania Sali Berisha/ Instagram

The Billionaire’s 'Laundromat'

In August 2022, a federal grand jury indicted Vázquez, Herrera, and Rossini on conspiracy and bribery charges that carried a 20-year maximum sentence.

Prosecutors alleged that billionaire banker Julio Herrera Velutini wanted to decapitate Puerto Rico’s banking regulator because the agency was scrutinising his bank’s anti-money-laundering compliance. Herrera allegedly used Rossini as the intermediary to buy the Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced's cooperation with campaign cash.

The regulatory fear was well-founded. Investigators later hit Herrera’s bank, Bancrédito, with a $15 million penalty for failing to report hundreds of millions in suspicious transactions linked to a Venezuelan Ponzi scheme, international drug trafficking and a global cryptocurrency scam.

However, what began as a public corruption case in Puerto Rico took a bizarre turn in September 2024 when the defence moved to compel the Government to produce classified records regarding their employers and financial networks. This, however, invoked the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA).

Usually reserved for espionage and counterintelligence cases, CIPA allows the US Government to protect state secrets during a trial. The defence move may have been "graymail" - a legal manoeuvre where the defence threatens to expose sensitive national security secrets unless the Government drops the charges.

The tactic seemingly worked. Instead of producing the classified records, by June 2025 the US Department of Justice's resolve crumbled. They bypassed the grand jury to file a single misdemeanour 'slap on the wrist' plea. The trial was successfully neutralised before the pardons even arrived and Rossini's secrets stayed secret.

The Cleaners: Erasing the Paper Trail

As the case veered into the realm of classified secrets, Herrera swapped local counsel for a high-powered team of 'cleaners' - lawyers with connection to Trump's inner circle and US Government agencies

The most notable addition was Christopher M. Kise. Having served as Trump’s personal attorney during the Mar-a-Lago classified documents investigation, Kise was already intimately familiar with navigating federal prosecutions involving national security. His presence bridged the gap between the defendants and the highest levels of the incoming administration.

But the hire of Robert J. Eatinger Jr. was the most significant. A 20-year veteran of the CIA’s Office of General Counsel, Eatinger’s career is publicly defined by the management of 'inconvenient' evidence.

In 2005, Eatinger provided the legal cover for the destruction of 92 videotapes showing the waterboarding of detainees. His name also appears over 1,600 times in the Senate’s classified report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program.

Eatinger’s involvement raises a chilling question: Was he hired to defend a bribery case, or was he hired because he knows exactly how to ensure sensitive records never see the light of day?

The Pay-to-Play Loop

The final push for clemency followed a familiar pattern of high-dollar influence and media rebranding. Federal Election Commission records indicate that the path to Trump's pardon was paved with millions in contributions.

On New Year’s Eve 2024, as the legal walls closed in, Isabela Herrera - the banker billionaire’s daughter - injected $2.5 million into the pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc. Seven months later, after prosecutors had already agreed to gut the charges but before the final sentencing could take place, she followed up with another $1 million. The pardons arrived exactly six months after the first cheque cleared.

While the money flowed behind the scenes, a public effort was launched to scrub Rossini’s record.

In September 2025, Tucker Carlson released a documentary titled "The 9/11 Files," featuring Rossini as its central protagonist. Carlson presented Rossini not as a disgraced agent or a fixer for oligarchs, but as a heroic whistleblower.

The documentary omitted every inconvenient fact of Rossini’s career, including his 2009 felony conviction for illegally accessing FBI databases to help a Hollywood private eye, his extensive work for Deripaska, and his partnership with the imprisoned Charles McGonigal. It further overlooked his role as the primary intermediary in the bribery of a governor.

By the time the pardon was signed, the narrative had been successfully flipped. Rossini was no longer a defendant in a corruption case, but a "victim" of the "deep state".

The End of Scrutiny

By pardoning Rossini alongside Herrera and Vázquez, Trump sent a clear signal. Foreign actors and domestic propagandists can now tell a sanitised story in which the President saved an FBI whistleblower from persecution for supporting a pro-Trump governor.

This version of history conveniently erases Rossini’s 2009 felony conviction for illegal database access and his subsequent years of service to sanctioned Russian interests; his partnership with a disgraced counterintelligence chief and his strategic use of the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying about his work for Putin’s inner circle. Most importantly, it ensures that the classified records detailing what these American officials actually did for Russian networks will remain under lock and key.

The case file in Puerto Rico remains partially sealed, and the national security secrets triggered by the CIPA proceedings are now permanently beyond the reach of any courtroom. The lead prosecutor, Ryan Crosswell, has described the outcome as "a sad day for the rule of law".

The CIA declined to comment on Eatinger's service or his subsequent work as defence counsel. Rossini, Kise, Eatinger, Isabela Herrera, Soriano, MAGA Inc., the Department of Justice, the White House and the Tucker Carlson Network did not respond to requests for comment.

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