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On this archival photo taken on January 24, 2017, a man enters the Treasury Department building in Washington, DC (Paul J. Richards / AFP / Getty Images)
Devlin Barrett
A journalist specializing in national security and law enforcement
Matt Zapotosky
National Security Journalist Covering the Department of Justice
An employee of the Treasury Department was charged on Wednesday with disclosing confidential government information regarding suspicious financial transactions related to the investigation by the special advocate on Russian electoral interference and the Trump employees.
The charges reflect the Trump Administration's latest move in its efforts to eliminate government leaks. Earlier this week, a former senate senate pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents as part of a separate investigation into a leak.
The Treasury case focuses on a dozen articles published by BuzzFeed News describing reports of suspicious activity, or SAR, generated by banks when a financial transaction may involve illegal activity.
Prosecutors have indicted Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards for unauthorized disclosure of suspicious activity reports and conspiracy. The charges have been filed in federal court in New York, but she is due to appear for the first time in Virginia's northern court, officials said.
Edwards, 40, works as a senior advisor in the Treasury's Financial Crime Network, often referred to as "FinCEN".
Geoffrey S. Berman, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said that Edwards "betrayed his position of trust by repeatedly disclosing extremely sensitive information."
The stories cited in the criminal complaint against Edwards correspond to the headlines, words and news contained in the BuzzFeed news, although the court documents did not identify the company by name. These reports often included reports of suspicious activity related to personalities investigated by special advocate Robert S. Mueller III, including former president of the Trump campaign, Paul Manafort, Russian diplomats and other Trump associates.
The latest story of this type was published Monday, again from the RS reports.
According to FinCEN officials, about 2 million reports of suspicious activity were filed in 2017 by banks, money services businesses, casinos and others. In itself, reports of suspicious activity do not mean much. But taken with other evidence, they can help investigators carry out specific transactions that may involve financial crimes.
The 18-page criminal complaint details a research on Edwards' phone and a USB stick she had, which FBI agents said they found a long digital record of her interactions with reporters, in which she shared reports on SARS.
"Most of the files have been saved in a folder on the USB flash drive called" Debacle – Operation-CF "and in subfolders with names like" Debacle Emails Asshat ", says the complaint. "Edwards is not known to be involved in an official FinCEN project or task carrying these file titles or code names."
The flash drive files "seem to contain thousands of SAR, as well as other extremely sensitive documents concerning Russia, Iran and the terrorist group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant," according to the complaint.
When FBI agents questioned Edwards on Tuesday, she initially denied having any contact with the journalist whose name appeared in the articles in question, then "changed accounts, and confessed that she was Many times, she had used SARs on her computer, had photographed them and had After Reporter, these photographs were transmitted to Reporter-1 "with the help of an encrypted application on his telephone.
According to the record, Edwards presented herself as a whistleblower during the interview, but she added that she had already filed a whistle-blowing complaint related to her work, which did not involve the disclosure of DAS.
The court documents also indicate that the FBI investigated one of the bosses of Edwards, an associate director of FinCEN, indicating that he had exchanged 325 text messages with the journalist in question during the month in which the first article was cited. , citing SAR reports.
A FinCEN spokesman said Edwards had been put on administrative leave. He did not answer a question about the status of the associate director mentioned in the indictment.
A representative of BuzzFeed did not immediately respond to a call for comments.
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