CIA official charged after $40 million in gold bars found at home

A senior CIA official has been arrested after federal agents found hundreds of gold bars worth more than $40 million at his home in Virginia, according to court documents.

David Rush, who held a management position at the CIA, was arrested last week and is being held while he awaits a detention hearing in the coming days. He is charged in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, with stealing public money by submitting fraudulent time sheets, according to court documents cited by the New York Times and NBC News.

Federal agents searched Rush’s home on May 18 and seized about 300 gold bars worth more than $40 million, about $2 million in U.S. currency and 35 luxury watches, most of them Rolexes, according to an FBI affidavit cited by NBC News.

The affidavit says Rush requested funds from November through March, including foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars, for work-related expenses. Investigators later found only part of the funds in a storage space near his office.

Rush is accused of taking some of the money he requested for work and bringing it to his home for personal gain, according to the affidavit. The court filing did not identify the agency where he worked, but two people familiar with his employment history told NBC News that Rush was with the CIA.

“After a CIA internal investigation identified potential violations of the law, CIA Director John Ratcliffe referred the information to the FBI for a law enforcement investigation,” the FBI said in a written statement obtained by NBC News.

“The FBI is working closely with our partners at the CIA and the Department of Justice as we continue to investigate this matter fully,” the statement said. “We are committed to following the facts, ensuring accountability, and pursuing justice in accordance with the law.”

Rush is also accused of lying to government employers about his background for nearly two decades. According to NBC News, Rush applied for government jobs three times and claimed degrees from Clemson University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, as well as training from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School.

In applications for promotions, Rush also claimed he had been a thesis adviser at the Air Force Institute of Technology and told employers he had been a Navy pilot, according to NBC News.

Investigators said those claims were false. Rush did not graduate from the schools, and the FAA had no certificate or pilot’s license registered to him.