Senior Treasury official is caught with a flash drive and arrested over leak of 'Suspicious Activity Reports' about Paul Manafort, the Russian embassy

superbeets

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[h=2]Senior Treasury official is caught with a flash drive and arrested over leak of 'Suspicious Activity Reports' about Paul Manafort, the Russian embassy and alleged Moscow spy Maria Butina[/h]

• Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards faces charges for allegedly leaking sensitive banking documents to a reporter
• Court documents don't name the news outlet but describe a series of articles whose headlines match those published by BuzzFeed
• The files, called 'Suspicious Activity Reports' (SARs) are sent by banks to the federal government when they notice potential criminal money transfers
• Edwards is accused of leaking SARs related to Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Maria Butina and Russia's embassy in Washington
• They were all targets of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe
• Edwards was found with a thumb drive full of the documents when she was arrested but denied having any relationship with reporters
• Two felony charges could add up to 10 years in prison

 

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The Justice Department have charged a Treasury Department employee with giving a reporter confidential banking reports tied to Paul Manafort, Maria Butina and other suspects charged in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.
Federal prosecutors say Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards will appear in court Wednesday in Alexandria, Virginia.
Edwards, 40, is a senior official at Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). She's accused of leaking the material to a journalist who was not named in the criminal complaint.
She tried to 'conceal her relationship' with the reporter on Tuesday and 'denied having any contacts with the news media' when FBI agents first interviewed her, according to court documents that also reveal she ultimately confessed.
But they say Edwards claimed to be a 'whistle-blower' who sent the documents to a reporter for 'record-keeping.' Although she has previously filed a whistle-blower complaint with the Treasury Department, agents determined that it was unrelated to the document leaks.

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Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards is pictured (right) in her LinkedIn profile photo with Michael Sullivan, a former acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; she faces felony charges of giving a reporter confidential bank records related to Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Maria Butins and others — all of them linked to the Robert Mueller Russia probe

Paul Manafort (left) and Rick Gates (right) are both former senior Trump campaign aides ; reports that banks sent the Treasury Department about 'suspicious' transactions in their accounts were leaked to a reporter, and the suspected leaker now faces felony charges

+6

Maria Butina, a suspected Russian spy, also had a 'Suspicious Activity Report' leaked from the Treasury Department; she faces charges that she tried to infiltrate U.S. political organizations as a covert Russian agent

Prosecutors say 'Suspicious Activity Reports' on Manafort, Butina, Rick Gates and Russia's embassy in Washington were among those Edwards leaked. They allege she photographed the documents before sending them to the reporter.
Edwards was found with a flash drive containing the confidential reports when she was arrested Tuesday, the Justice Department said, along with a cellphone containing messages to the reporter.
Investigators say that on a single day in August she 'exchanged approximately 541 messages' with the reporter via an encrypted app, and that she used the same app to send the documents during the past year.
Suspicious Activity Reports are documents that banks file with the government when they spot potentially illegal transactions.
They 'are not public documents, and it is an independent federal crime to disclose them outside of one’s official duties,' U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said.
Edwards is charged with one count of 'unauthorized disclosures of suspicious activity reports' and one count of 'conspiracy to make unauthorized disclosures of suspicious activity reports.'
Each charge could bring her a five-year prison term if she's found guilty.

+6

An arrest warrant for Edwards spelled out how she took pictures of the documents and sent them to a reporter with an encrypted messaging app, and mentions a second, so far unnamed, suspect

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Investigators pointe dsquarely at BuzzFeed, without naming it, as the publication that received the stolen documents

Prosecutors have not said which news organization and which of its reporters received the illicit documents. But investigators wrote that the publication is headquartered in New York.
New York-based BuzzFeed has reported extensively on SAR documents connected to Butina, Manafort and others.
An arrest warrant application for Edwards includes a list of dates when articles were published based on the SARs. That list corresponds neatly with BuzzFeed's stories on the subject. And it mentions headlines of speific stories that match BuzzFeed articles.
Many of those stories raised issues of suspicious money transfers around the time of a 2016 Trump Tower meeting that involved Manafort, Gates, Donald Trump, Jr. and a Russian lawyer.
But Edwards does not appear to be an anti-Donald Trump zealot.

+6

Edwards wrote on Facebook last month that she didn't believe Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford

 

superbeets

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+6

Charged: Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards was taken into custody over claims she was a leaker

 

superbeets

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At the height of last month's Supreme Court nomination scandal pitting the president's nominee Brett Kavanaugh against Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, a woman who claimed the jurist had sexually assaulted her in 1982, Edwards came down on Kavanaugh's side.
'I believe something happened to Dr. Ford, but I do not believe it was by the person she claims. False accusations should be charged and/or handled accordingly,' she wrote on Facebook.
'This man has been accused of “criminal” activity on the national stage. Criminal activity that has no evidence or corroboration, no location, no timeline. I would have come out swinging as he did if I had been accused of a “criminal” activity I know I did not commit.'
'Next time a woman’s son calls and says “mom I was at a party and have been accused of doing something sexually that I didn’t do”, is the standard set now that her response should be “I’m sorry son but I believe her until you prove otherwise”?' Edwards concluded.
Edwards received a Master of Education degree in 2002 from Virginia Commonwealth University, with a conentration on Curriculum and Instruction,, according to a commencement program.

 

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Edwards ultimately confessed to law enforcement officials on Tuesday, according to her arrest warrant

 

superbeets

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Her LinkedIn biography describes a government career spanning the Department of Justice; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
'She has established and directed highly successful, multi-million dollar programs, operational deployments, negotiated proposals/contracts, executed financial plans, formulated/implemented business development strategies, spearheaded congressional notifications, fostered team building, cultivated effective staff, and led organizational change,' it reads.
Court papers point to a second FinCEN employee as a co-conspirator, noting that the person exchanged more than 300 messages with the reporter via an encrypted messaging application.
The co-conspirator has not been charged and was not named in the court papers, and was identified only as an associate director at FinCEN to whom Edwards reported.
According to court papers, federal investigators obtained a judge's order to monitor the calls to and from the associate director’s personal cellphone, capturing the frequency of contacts with the reporter via the encrypted messaging app. Court papers do not detail the contents of those messages.

Read more:

• Manafort Under Scrutiny For $40 Million In ¿Suspicious¿ Transactions
• Here Is The Money Trail From The Russian "Agent" And Her Republican Partner
• Here's Why The FBI And Mueller Are Investigating "Suspicious" Transactions By Russian Diplomats
• U S v Natalie Edwards Complaint

 

superbeets

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Let me guess...another proud member of the resistance?

 

Michelangelo

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Love it. Prosecute.

Small potato. But better than no potato.

 

Coldweather

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​Fake liberal news media won't cover it! Their ya go~! Get out and vote! cheersgifcheersgifcheersgifcheersgifcheersgifcheersgifcheersgifcheersgifcheersgifcheersgifcheersgif

 

Acebb

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The records were leaked to perpetuate the "collusion" myth.

 

Dave007inVegas

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