Inside the U.S. government there's a level of secrecy so tight that most people with top-secret clearances aren't allowed to know a given program exists. It's called a Special Access Program, and asking questions about one you haven't been "read into" is how careers end.
In October 2025, David Rush made one up.
Rush, 49, of Ashburn, Virginia, was a senior executive in the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology. He held a Top Secret/SCI clearance and worked as a liaison to the Pentagon on sensitive military programs. That job put him in the one corner of the federal government where "it's classified" ends every conversation.
He used it to steal about $194 million.
The scheme was simple. Rush created fake classified authorities, approved the spending himself, and had contractors and subcontractors make the purchases. Prosecutors say he set it up for his "maximum self-enrichment at the expense of the United States."
The first fake program sent $145 million through a front company to buy four luxury homes in Palm Beach and Hobe Sound, Florida. He planned to renovate them at government expense and sell them for a profit.
The second fake program was for gold. Rush told contractors he was running a Top Secret project that required delivering "high-value commodities to unnamed individuals." In January, one contractor wired $45 million on his word. That transfer became the wire fraud count he pleaded guilty to.
On May 19, FBI agents searched his house. They found 298 gold bars, which had cost the government about $46 million. They also found $2,106,550 in cash, €104,795 in euros, and more than 30 luxury watches. Rush also had two 2026 BMW Alpina SUVs, one worth about $172,000. He had spent $1.8 million of government money on private charter flights that prosecutors said served "no legitimate purpose," and he had collected military leave for service that had already ended.
Then there's how he got the job in the first place.
On his application, Rush said he had graduated from the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School and served as director of test operations for a joint Army/Navy unit. He told his neighbors he was a pilot. In the Navy, he had been an information systems technician.
That résumé got him into the Senior Executive Service, with access to the government's most closely held programs. The Air Force Test Pilot School keeps graduation records, and one phone call would have exposed him.
The money is only part of the damage. Late in 2025, Rush gave a foreign government official "certain descriptive information of a U.S. government clandestine human source." That source is a person somewhere in the world who is risking their life for the United States. Court papers say Rush admitted it on April 28, in an interview with CIA investigators. Neither the foreign government nor the fate of the source has been made public.
The CIA had him in an interview room by April 28. The agency referred the case to the FBI, and three weeks later agents were counting gold bars in his house. The FBI, the CIA and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigated together. About $38.6 million was still sitting in his holding company's account when the government froze it.
In June, a federal judge ordered Rush held without bail as "a severe flight risk." Prosecutors called him a "master manipulator" who "cannot be trusted" and is "fully willing and able to skirt the rules."
On October 6, Rush pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in federal court in Alexandria. He agreed to forfeit at least $194 million, along with the gold, the cash, the four Florida properties, the watches and both BMWs.
"Federal employees are entrusted with serving the American people, not themselves," said Attorney General Todd Blanche. "The Trump Administration is committed to rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government, including by prosecuting those who foolishly defraud American taxpayers."
CIA Director John Ratcliffe said Rush "abused his position and betrayed the public trust and should be held fully accountable." FBI Director Kash Patel said he "betrayed his oath, his co-workers, and the American people and he will now face justice." First Assistant U.S. Attorney Theophani K. Stamos put it most sharply: "He robbed his country, not just of its treasury, but also of its faith."
Every year, the intelligence community gets more than $70 billion that the public is told it can't see the details of. That's the deal: secrecy in exchange for safety. Most of the people working under that secrecy honor the deal.
David Rush is the reason the deal needs someone checking it, starting with the hiring paperwork. The fake test pilot faces up to 20 years in federal prison. Judge Michael S. Nachmanoff will sentence him on January 28, 2027.