U.S. News
Former CIA officer accused of stashing gold bars ordered to remain in jail pending trial
David Rush will remain behind bars because ‘he is in a different position from most people,’ the judge said
CIA officer arrested with gold bars worked on Pentagon's nuclear program, sources say
June 5, 2026, 12:22 PM EDT
By Gary Grumbach, Nathan Gonzalez and Corky Siemaszko
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The former CIA officer found with $40 million in gold bars stashed at his Virginia home was ordered held behind bars Friday until he goes on trial for criminal theft of public money after a prosecutor branded him a “master manipulator.” ... 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.
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A CIA employee for about 17 years, Rush was most recently a liaison to the Defense Department for a highly 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.
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