Treasury Department is Hiding Cohen's "Missing" Documents From Law Enforcement.

[RandySF]

Records pertaining to the financial activities of President Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen are not missing from a government database; rather Treasury Department officials have taken the highly unusual step of restricting access to them even from certain law enforcement agencies, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

The New Yorker magazine this week reported that a law enforcement official — worried the information about Cohen’s banking records had been removed from government databases and therefore might be covered up — had admitted to leaking some of what was still accessible.

The information that was leaked, showed that Cohen, through a shell company, had received payments from several firms with business before the Trump administration, including telecom giant AT&T. The revelations set off a firestorm in Washington and were followed by the departures of officials from their jobs at AT&T and Novartis. The Treasury Department’s Inspector General has launched a probe into the leak.

The New Yorker quoted an unnamed law enforcement official saying they were motivated to leak the information because they had tried to access financial information about Cohen from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network database, which includes suspicious activity reports, or SARs, from banks. By law, banks must file suspicious activity reports when they spot transactions that bear hallmarks of money laundering or other financial misconduct. Such reports can support investigations and intelligence gathering — but by themselves they are not evidence of a crime

The database is maintained by the Treasury Department, but, through various memorandums of understanding, many law enforcement agencies including the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI, and the IRS, have access to it.

The law enforcement official told the New Yorker they could only access one SAR related to Cohen, but knew that two more should have been available.

“I have never seen something pulled off the system,” the official told the New Yorker. “I immediately became concerned.” The official added: “That’s why I came forward.”

But three sources familiar with the matter said that access to Cohen’s SARs has merely been limited, not removed. They added that limiting access is rare and must have come from the top of the Treasury Department.

In a statement, a New Yorker spokesman noted that the story had reported that FinCEN can restrict access to information “deemed highly sensitive” and that the agency may have restricted access to the documents because they relate to ongoing investigations.

In a public statement, FinCEN did not acknowledge Cohen specifically, but did say that FinCEN “will limit access to certain SARs when requested by law enforcement authorities in connection with an ongoing investigation.”

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and the Southern District of New York is investigating Cohen.



https://www.buzzfeed.com/jasonaleopold/cohen-sars?utm_term=.vvyK9PVqEG#.neop0O8dqn

[jberryhill]

1. What was that "law enforcement official" investigating?

The official leaked the ones obtained, because the others were locked down?

And the official had obtained the other ones in the course of some investigation this official was conducting?

It seems this official’s conduct is precisely the sort of thing which the lockdown was intended to pre-empt.

[flibbitygiblets]

2. The giant ray of sunshine here is that there's far more

incriminating information contained in the other two SARs...and Mueller knows all about them. Maybe Avenatti too.

[RandySF]

3. But what is Treasury hiding?

[triron]

11. Seems very suspect doesn't it? Do not trust Mnuchin.

Taking orders from higher up?

[dalton99a]

12. +1. I bet Mnuchin is behind this

[PSPS]

4. "limiting access is rare and must have come from the top of the Treasury Department"

"The top of the Treasury Department" is trumper-supreme Steven Mnuchin. Were these other documents "disappeared" by Mnuchin to protect trump?

[OnDoutside]

5. When and by whom ? That's key to this.

[Lee-Lee]

6. Limiting access to records for high profile cases isn't uncommon

In theory nobody with access to any of these databases is supposed to look at anything other than what they are supposed to be looking at for an investigation.

When you are given access to restricted government databases, be it anything from Treasury tomedical records the DMV, you sign paperwork acknowledging that you won’t look at anything that isn’t official business in the course of your investigations.

And, people being people, they do. They look up exes. They look up celebrities. They look at things for investigations against their friends. They look at things for investigations that are in the news.

So some high profile records get locked down.

People get fired from job s ranging from law enforcement to social workers to the IRS for wrongfully accessing these databases. We had a dispatcher fired when I was a deputy for using the DMV to get an address of a man she was interested in from his license plate, and we had a social worker get fired for accessing the IRS records (since they have to verify income) of some local politicians.

For an example of when things get locked down while lots of people working in the state of Hawaii could access vital records, President Obama’s records were locked down in the name of his privacy. That’s what his birth certificate was never leaked during all this truther nonsense until he wanted it out.

What this means in the small picture is that whoever leaked this is in pretty deep shit, because it would indicate there were digging around in these records without actual need. That’s typically a firable offense and depending on the specifics could be a criminal violation.

What it means big picture is harder to say. It could be the Treasury trying to cover things up. Or it could be just a move to prevent people from leaking stuff, and it could have even come from
Muellers team himself to try and prevent Cohens team from seeing these in leaks. That’s hard to say.

But since the files were only limited it’s safe to say that whoever leaked them is about to have a very bad time.

[jberryhill]

7. This person's story doesn't hang together

".... they were motivated to leak the information because they had tried to access financial information about Cohen from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network database"

Not a word about why he/she was trying to access it in the first place.

I'm having trouble sorting out what this person's story is. They had obtained some records for a reason which is not described, but only decided to pass those on to Avenatti once they found that other records weren't available? The take away being that if they were all accessible, then this person wouldn't have disclosed them?

It sounds like they are trying to claim that the restricted status of the other records was what motivated leaking the ones which were unrestricted, but that doesn't explain why they were trawling around in the database in the first place.

[Lee-Lee]

9. Yeah exactly. That person is likely in a lot of trouble

If they were looking for reasons of a legitimate investigation then their first step on not seeing something that they had seen before would simply be to go up the chain on that system and say “hey, my access to this is limited for some reason. I need this access to do my working investigating XYZ.”

Instead they leaked documents they could get direct to the attorney in a civil case? Of all the places to leak to, you go directly there?

It doesn’t add up.

I suspect someone with access decided that they wanted to look at stuff they shouldn’t and then decided to leak them when they couldn’t access things they had seen before.

If they were not supposed to be accessing those files for a legitimate reason they are in deep trouble. If they were accessing them for a legitimate reason and didn’t raise concerns via proper channels before jumping to a leak they are in almost as much trouble.

And leaking directly to the opposing counsel in a civil lawsuit damages the credibility of the leaker no matter what. It makes it appear like there was a partisan motive or they were taking sides in a civil case- either is not good. If you leak you leak it to Muellers people, the Inspector General, or even the media to make sure it looks like your motive is transparency. If I was in LE, doing an investigation and thought people were deleting files of that nature my only contact would be with officials on Muellers team and nobody else.

I could almost think this leak is a setup to try and discredit Avenatti by handing him illegally sourced documents and then setting up some low level employee to take the fall for it. Because if it turns out that the info was illegally accessed to begin with that gives Trump a whole line to spew about the “deep state” and “swamp” illegally working with Avenatti who was taking illegal leaks.

That makes as much sense as any other explanation we have seen. I just can’t see any competent federal LE person seeing this info that is part of an active investigation they are doing disappear and making their first choice of response leaking what remains to the opposing counsel in a civil suit.

[csziggy]

14. I agree that it could be an attempt to discredit Avenatti

The comment attributed to the leaker being "terrified" remind me of Devin Nunez and Sam Nunberg and they way they were panicked at various points.

[Mc Mike]

8. Gee, that's odd.

[Thrill]

10. Criminal Enterprise.

[Dawson Leery]

13. This corruption comes from the top.

We need the House. It is the only way to keep balance and keep the right under control.

[jberryhill]

15. This is a bullshit story

According to information released today, these records were restricted BECAUSE of the criminal investigation into Michael Cohen.

They were leaked directly to Avenatti by an IRS employee who confessed to it and is now charged:

http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2019/images/02/21/fry.complaint.and.summons.pdf