"Take them back!"
Bucky, Bradley, and Condliffe were initially stunned, but they quickly regained their composure and were about to step forward.
Meanwhile, Bronning Mitchelson, after a brief moment of distraction, had finally come to his senses.
Bronning lashed out angrily, "What do you mean by this? Are you trying to settle personal scores?"
"Director David, it's true that your National Revenue Agency is powerful, but we at the FBI are not pushovers. If you want to target us, first see if you can bear the consequences!"
Mitchellson chimed in.
David looked at them impassively and said, "What personal scores? We currently suspect both of you of tax evasion and would like you to come with us for an investigation. You at the FBI should know that we have the authority to do this, right?"
The two glared at David for a good while before Mitchellson gritted his teeth and said, "Fine, we'll come with you. But if you can't provide an explanation afterward, this matter is far from over!"
After taking the two men back to the office, David didn't continue to interrogate them. Instead, he decided to lock them up for the night to dampen their spirits.
Latter, to avoid alerting the suspects, he first had their cell phones collected, then instructed that they be denied phone calls.
Finally, he called over Bucky and his team, briefed them with some information about Bronning and Mitchellson, and had them investigate overnight.
After all this, he returned home.
The next morning, David arrived at the office, and Bucky and his team immediately found him and handed over the information they had gathered overnight.
After carefully reviewing it for half an hour and ascertaining there were no issues, he then ordered Bronning and Mitchellson to be brought into the interrogation room.
"If you don't remember, then let me help you recollect!"
"At that time, you were in Henderson City and caught a group of terrorists planning to execute acts of violence on Christmas. You confiscated half a million dollars in illegal funds at the scene, correct?"
Upon hearing this, the color drained slightly from their faces.
Immediately, Mitchellson retorted, "I don't know where you got your gossip from, but we seized four hundred and sixty thousand US dollars, which have been fully turned over. If you want to know more, you can check with our department!"
David wasn't in a hurry; he opened the documents he had brought and pulled out a few photos, placing them in front of the two men.
In the photos was Mitchellson, at a red-light establishment in the downtown area.
"What is this supposed to mean? Who says FBI agents can't go to these places?"
Although it was a red-light establishment undercover, it was legal on the surface, so Mitchellson wasn't worried about David using this as a pretext to target him.
David then pulled out another document, placed it in front of him, and said, "This is a statement from the dancer who entertained you. You gave her one hundred US dollars, and the establishment charged an eight hundred US dollar fee."
"However, what is interesting is that you paid this money in cash, and we've traced your account, finding that, apart from some automatic charges over the past few months, your total expenditures were only five hundred US dollars. How do you explain the source of this nine hundred dollars in cash?"
All public servants in America have their salaries and bonuses directly deposited into their accounts; there are no instances of being paid in cash.
Therefore, the simplest way for the National Revenue Agency to investigate any public servant is to directly track their accounts and check their cash transactions, which makes everything clear at a glance.
Although Mitchellson was an FBI agent with a strong sense of counter-surveillance, if he had taken bribes, he would inevitably spend it.
In this era of ubiquitous high-tech cameras, with the powerful channels and resources of the National Revenue Agency, combined with the information at David's disposal through the 'golden finger', it was not too difficult to find all these clues.
Mitchellson's eyebrows furrowed slightly, but he quickly countered, "I withdrew ten thousand US dollars half a year ago. This cash has been carried over since then. Is there a problem with that?"