A Treasury Department employee has been arrested for leaking thousands of bank records related to President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, his business partner Rick Gates, the Russian Embassy, and accused Russian agent Maria Butina.
Bloomberg reports that Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, senior adviser at Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), has been accused of leaking Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) to an unidentified reporter at Buzzfeed. The information had been written up by the media outlet as recently as Monday, October 15.
“Edwards began communicating with the unidentified reporter in July 2017, according to prosecutors,” Bloomberg reported. “Between October 2017 and January 2018, she saved thousands of FinCen files, including all the SARs cited in the case.”
Edwards and a “co-conspirator” who is not named in the complaint “exchanged approximately 301 messages with Report-1.”
Edwards was arrested Tuesday carrying a flash drive containing the SARs and a phone she used to send the information to the reporter. On Wednesday, she confessed to leaking the reports but “falsely denied” knowing the SARs would be published, the complaint says.
This report will be updated as more information becomes available.
