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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMissing Files Motivated the Leak of Michael Cohen's Financial Records
@RonanFarrow
The whistleblower who leaked Michael Cohens financial records is stepping forward to say why: records of bigger, potentially more sensitive, swaths of suspicious transactions appeared to be missing from a government database. My @newyorker investigation:
Link to tweet
Link to tweet
Missing Files Motivated the Leak of Michael Cohens Financial Records
A law-enforcement official released the documents after finding that additional suspicious transactions did not appear in a government database.
By Ronan Farrow6:17 P.M.
Last week, several news outlets obtained financial records showing that Michael Cohen, President Trumps personal attorney, had used a shell company to receive payments from various firms with business before the Trump Administration. In the days since, there has been much speculation about who leaked the confidential documents, and the Treasury Departments inspector general has launched a probe to find the source. That source, a law-enforcement official, is speaking publicly for the first time, to The New Yorker, to explain the motivation: the official had grown alarmed after being unable to find two important reports on Cohens financial activity in a government database. The official, worried that the information was being withheld from law enforcement, released the remaining documents.
The payments to Cohen that have emerged in the past week come primarily from a single document, a suspicious-activity report filed by First Republic Bank, where Cohens shell company, Essential Consultants, L.L.C., maintained an account. The document detailed sums in the hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to Cohen by the pharmaceutical company Novartis, the telecommunications giant A.T. & T., and an investment firm with ties to the Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg.
The report also refers to two previous suspicious-activity reports, or sars, that the bank had filed, which documented even larger flows of questionable money into Cohens account. Those two reports detail more than three million dollars in additional transactionstriple the amount in the report released last week. Which individuals or corporations were involved remains a mystery. But, according to the official who leaked the report, these sars were absent from the database maintained by the Treasury Departments Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or fincen. The official, who has spent a career in law enforcement, told me, I have never seen something pulled off the system. . . . That system is a safeguard for the bank. Its a stockpile of information. When somethings not there that should be, I immediately became concerned. The official added, Thats why I came forward.
Seven former government officials and other experts familiar with the Treasury Departments fincen database expressed varying levels of concern about the missing reports. Some speculated that fincen may have restricted access to the reports due to the sensitivity of their content, which they said would be nearly unprecedented. One called the possibility explosive. A record-retention policy on fincens Web site notes that false documents or those deemed highly sensitive and requiring strict limitations on access may be transferred out of its master file. Nevertheless, a former prosecutor who spent years working with the fincen database said that she knew of no mechanism for restricting access to sars. She speculated that fincen may have taken the extraordinary step of restricting access because of the highly sensitive nature of a potential investigation. It may be that someone reached out to fincen to ask to limit disclosure of certain sars related to an investigation, whether it was the special counsel or the Southern District of New York. (The special counsel, Robert Mueller, is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election. The Southern District is investigating Cohen, and the F.B.I. raided his office and hotel room last month.)
Whatever the explanation for the missing reports, the appearance that some, but not all, had been removed or restricted troubled the official who released the report last week. Why just those two missing? the official, who feared that the contents of those two reports might be permanently withheld, said. Thats what alarms me the most.
MORE:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/missing-files-motivated-the-leak-of-michael-cohens-financial-records
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Missing Files Motivated the Leak of Michael Cohen's Financial Records (Original Post)
kpete
May 2018
OP
Trace the theft of documents back to Stupid-45. I wonder if documents can be restored
NCjack
May 2018
#1
NCjack
(10,279 posts)1. Trace the theft of documents back to Stupid-45. I wonder if documents can be restored
from system archives.
AJT
(5,240 posts)2. I wonder if the bank still has records of the transactions.
NCjack
(10,279 posts)3. That would be good. Nicer if the archive shows they were once in place
and subsequently removed illegally.
GusBob
(7,286 posts)5. If they know the amounts, they may know the source?
Or can they tell by the balance on the account
B2G
(9,766 posts)12. Of course they do.
Banks have very strict record retention requirements.
GusBob
(7,286 posts)4. Holy shit! This is beyond huge
That guy who released them is scared shitless.
Who has the missing SARS? Either a cop, or a criminal.
Hope it's a cop. If it's a criminal we have conspiracy, and a cover up
pnwmom
(108,955 posts)8. You're not kidding. n/t
GusBob
(7,286 posts)6. I wonder if the dates are significant. DU sleuths
2 million bucks June thru Sept of 2017
octoberlib
(14,971 posts)7. The whistleblower is a law enforcement officer. Ask people in the Nixon admin. what happens when
you fuck with the FBI. *Deep Throat*
BigmanPigman
(51,564 posts)10. Watergate 2018...I'd love to see him
go to jail instead of resigning or just being impeached. And all his and his family's assets seized too (since he loves more money more than anything or anyone...even his spawn).
malaise
(268,664 posts)9. This may be huge n/t
B2G
(9,766 posts)11. So he leaked them to Avenatti?
Do I have that right?
mnmoderatedem
(3,721 posts)14. documents like that don't just "disappear"
this was a coordinated effort. A number of folks are in yuge trouble
2naSalit
(86,308 posts)17. +1
byronius
(7,389 posts)15. Holy #$%*.
Either way, it's a gigantic story.
Sancho
(9,067 posts)16. On Rachael now..