Official says he leaked Michael Cohen’s financial reports because of fears over missing records
Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels’s attorney, published a memo last week that allegedly detailed Michael Cohen’s financial transactions. The “Project Sunlight” memo revealed Cohen’s firm Essential Consultants LLC had received hundreds of thousands of dollars from major corporations, including a $500,000 payment from a company with ties to a Russian oligarch.
Various companies that paid Cohen, Donald Trump’s personal attorney, for amorphous consulting services — AT&T and Novartis, among them — confirmed the payments. The admissions corroborated Avenatti’s revelations.
But a question arose about how Avenatti had obtained the confidential information, especially as Avenatti referenced “3 Suspicious Activity Reports” related to Cohen’s dealings and teased more significant disclosures to come. The Treasury Department launched an inquiry into the potential leak.
Reporting by the New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow answers that question. A law enforcement official told Farrow that he leaked the documents after becoming concerned that he could not find two reports on Cohen’s suspicious financial activity in a government database. Both of those reports, according to the New Yorker, detail even more substantial financial transactions — about $3 million dollars, three times the amount of last week’s disclosures.
This is an extraordinary allegation. This whistleblower is claiming the documents went missing from the database, the more sinister implication being that they were purposefully being withheld.
The documents this law enforcement official allegedly could not find are not easily misplaced bureaucratic paperwork. Suspicious activity reports, or SARs, are reports that banks and other financial institutions file if they have an inkling that someone might be engaging in money laundering or another illicit activity. They are filed with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which maintains a database for government and law enforcement officials. A suspicious activity report is not proof of any crime, just a red flag, and can help authorities establish patterns.
“I have never seen something pulled off the system. ... That system is a safeguard for the bank,” the source told the New Yorker. “It’s a stockpile of information. When something’s not there that should be, I immediately became concerned.”
Disclosing a suspicious activity report could violate federal law. The whistleblower said he thought the personal risk was outweighed by the possibility that the reports were purposefully hidden or removed. “Things that stand out as abnormal, like documents being removed from a system, are of grave concern to me,” he said.
Perhaps even more chilling is that there doesn’t seem to be an ordinary explanation for why those two reports have seemingly vanished from the searchable database. Some former government officials suggested to the New Yorker that it’s possible (though it would be extremely unusual) that access is restricted because of the extremely sensitive nature of the SARs, given that Cohen is under federal investigation by the Manhattan US attorney’s office.
That investigation, while apparently separate from special Counsel’s Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, was referred to federal prosecutors in New York by Mueller’s office.
What we know — and don’t know — about these reports about Cohen
There are reportedly three SARs related to Cohen filed by First Republic Bank by January 2018, where Cohen opened an account for his firm Essential Consultants LLC.
Cohen set up Essential Consultants to pay Stormy Daniels $130,000 in hush money days before the 2016 election to silence her about an alleged 2006 affair with Trump. Avenatti’s disclosure last week revealed that Cohen had also been busy selling himself as an essential consultant in the Trump era, peddling his services to major corporations, including AT&T, Novartis, and a Korean aerospace firm, which took him up on his offer, and Ford and Uber, which did not. Among those payments was a $500,000 transaction from Columbus Nova, which has ties to a company belonging to Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg.
The information in that disclosure covers one of the SARs, from September 2017 to January 2018. The other two reports, which total $3 million, are the ones that the official allegedly couldn’t find in the database.
A lot of that money ended up in Cohen’s personal coffers — which was flagged in a separate suspicious activity report by Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. Cohen deposited checks — two in the amount of $250,000 and one in the amount of $500,005 with the institution. According to the New Yorker: “Morgan Stanley Smith Barney marked those transactions, which added up to more than a million dollars, as possible signs of “bribery or gratuity” and “suspicious use of third-party transactors (straw-man).’”
And First Republic also seemed to think Cohen’s description of Essential Consultants LLC didn’t match up with the financial transactions. As the New Yorker reports:
In paperwork filed with the bank, he said that the company would be devoted to using “his experience in real estate to consult on commercial and residential” deals. Cohen told the bank that his transactions would be modest, and based within the United States. In fact, the compliance officers wrote, “a significant portion of the target account deposits continue to originate from entities that have no apparent connection to real estate or apparent need to engage Cohen as a real estate consultant.” Likewise, “a significant portion of the deposits continues to be derived from foreign entities.”
The implications of the SARS reports — both the one released, and the two others that reportedly exist — reveal, at best, Cohen still has a lot of explaining to do.
Mueller reportedly reached out to AT&T, Novartis, Ford, and other companies to ask questions last year about their relationship with Cohen. On Wednesday, the Washington Post confirmed that FBI investigated payments Korea Aerospace Industries paid to Cohen, asking questions of its representatives “a few weeks ago.” It’s unclear if Mueller’s team or federal prosecutions in Manhattan followed up on those payments.
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So, a Law Enforcement Official broke the law becuase he/she thought there was a possibility that the law was being broken...........got it. Only a true Washington D.C. could think of something as assinine as this and believe it.
Whistle blowers are specifically exempt from being charged as leakers if they expose evidence of crimes...
Suspicion of a crime being committed is not a valid reason for a law enforcement official to break the law. Had did Avenatti obtain the financial records?
Not to mention that Trump appointees have a monopoly in the leaking business. How dare someone else try to push their way in.
A filing of an SAR is not evidence of a crime.
"A suspicious activity report is not proof of any crime, just a red flag, and can help authorities establish patterns."
Also, "Disclosing a suspicious activity report could violate federal law."
And who gets to determine which are "whistleblowers". Plus his story defies belief - he wanted to preserve them so he handed them over to Trump hater Avennati?
BTW, the seeded article went on to say that is also could have been the Mueller team or the Southern District team that removed the information. No comment from either.
This deep state operative needs to be prosecuted
Is "deep state" your phrase of the month? Pretty sure I saw it in some of the spam I get.
It's become my mantra! I want to see them prosecuted. You should too. They launched a counter-intelligence investigation against a political campaign without a criminal pretext
You may sing like a canary and squawk like a minah bird butt it does not alter fact that all of those in Trump's orbit who got caught up in being surveilled got surveilled for their dealing with and ties to known Russian state operatives so our CIA and Homeland Security and FBI and other intelligence agencies would have been derelict of their duties to have not kept tabs on all of those Trumpsters dealing with known Russian spies.
That isn't true. Hacking and releasing of DNC emails is a crime. Why do you keep forgetting that is what started this?
The investigation of the Trump campaign? No, it did not.
Actually, those agents who thought they were saving America from Trump (I'm sure Obama signed off on it) will be facing criminal charges and I'm looking forward to it!
(Skirting the CoC removed) Telo
Not true in this case, but nice excusal atempt.
Apparently there are still a few patriotic whistleblowers left who risk their own careers to do the right thing.
By the way it sounds like Trump and Cohen covered up at least two more mistresses in close proximity to the election, apart from the others we already know about. Oops. Melaria and the FEC are going to be royally pissed.
.
Better a live girl than a dead boy........isn't that how the saying goes?
Still not impeachable and perfectly legal, if true.
Actually it's a federal crime if the Trump-controlled DOJ chooses to prosecute.
Well, it seems the WH Ethics Director disagrees.
So a whistle blower leaks some documents of malfeasance because he fears others like them will be deleted as some already seemed to have been, so a justified fear. But because they target someone close to Trump his followers challenge the leaked documents on the grounds they should never have been leaked or seen by the public.
But when an enemy foreign government hacks a political parties email server, illegally steals hundreds of thousands of private documents and releases them the same day bad press comes out against the candidate they are working hard to elect, the Trump followers cheer and celebrate the "noble" release of documents showing the behind the scenes political sausage making of their opponent. Talk about hypocrisy.
Bull! Prove it!
Prove what? That the documents are missing?
Yup, that would be a start.
How are we supposed to prove what the article asserts? The remaining SAR references the others that are no longer in the system.
They were either removed or hidden from view. That is plausible. Not sure why you think it isn't
We are all taking one mans word for everything - the leaker. The Treasury hasn't even spoken on this. Don't you think it's important to hear from them?
I don't have a problem taking the word of the whistle blower who has risked everything to get the story out there. What happens next is unknown.
I don't trust the Treasury under Mnuchin.
This is no whistleblower, this is a partisan seeking to help the left try and destroy Trump
to be a whistleblower you need to go first to a superior in your job. If they refuse to escalate the supposed concerns, then and only then does the law consider you a whistleblower
instead they went to a lifelong Democratic Party operative for less than honorable purposes. I hope this person is not only fired but prosecuted
That's the corrupt prosecutors job. Normally the Progressive Democrat Socialist C Party expects Trump to prove it isn't true. Don't they understand the justice system? They have to remember the way it has always been, the proof lies on the accuser, not the accused.
Yeah, no problem taking the word of one person, ananonymous person at that. Yup, the left is truly a sickness these days. So willing to believe anything, no mater if it's outlandish or not, becuase it suits what you want to believe, sitting behind your keyboard.......I fear for our children.
Speculation. You don't know that to be true. None of us do at this point.
Comment not worthy of reply.
Not worthy of reply. I won't speak to people who speak in generalizations and stereotypes.
It shows a lack of critical thinking.
If that is true, what are you doing here, posting comment after comment to others? Be gone.
My last post was 3 days ago. You could have just let it be, but no you needed to respond to me one more time just to tell me to go away.
Too funny!
Really, what was that about. Maybe just wanting to get seed back on front page.
Meh, I think he just likes pretending to have the authority to tell me to leave.
It did make me laugh though.
Generally, I'm not here on weekends and nights, I am out living my life. You made the statement, but you keep coming back for more. Are you a liar? Why are you here? Just because you need to win?