Senior Treasury employee 'leaked Russia-probe documents'

Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, 40. Photo / Alexandria Sheriff's Office

A senior US Treasury Department employee was charged with leaking to a reporter confidential government reports about the financial transactions of Trump associates and others under scrutiny in the Special Counsel's probe of Russian election interference.

The charges reflect the latest move in the Trump Administration's effort to punish leakers within the government. Earlier this week, a former senior Senate staffer pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents in a separate leak investigation.

The Treasury case centres on a dozen stories published by BuzzFeed News that described suspicious activity reports, or SARs, which are generated by banks when a financial transaction may involve illegal activity.

Prosecutors charged Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards with the unauthorised disclosure of suspicious activity reports and conspiracy. The charges were filed in federal court in New York but she made her first court appearance in northern Virginia.

Edwards, 40, lives outside Richmond, Virginia, and works as a senior adviser at the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, often referred to as "FinCEN."

At a brief court appearance in Alexandria, she was released on bail and instructed to appear next month in court in New York. She was also prohibited from speaking to anyone at FinCEN or accessing any FinCEN equipment.

Her lawyer, Peter Greenspun, declined to comment.

Geoffrey Berman, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Edwards "betrayed her position of trust by repeatedly disclosing highly sensitive information."

The stories cited in the criminal complaint filed against Edwards match the headlines, wording and information contained in BuzzFeed News stories, though the court papers did not identify the news organisation by name.

Those stories often focused on suspicious activity reports related to key figures in the investigation being conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, including former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Russian diplomats and other Trump associates.

One of the stories published in September included financial transactions involving Rob Goldstone, a British music publicist who helped arrange a meeting between senior Trump advisers and a Russian lawyer in 2016 that has been a focus of the investigation.

A Treasury employee has been arrested for allegedly leaking confidential financial reports, including information related to Mueller’s investigation into dealings between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign https://t.co/c1VBgEgsb9

— POLITICO (@politico) October 17, 2018

Goldstone in an email called it "outrageous" that his "personal and private regular banking details were leaked to BuzzFeed in order to create a salacious story."

The last BuzzFeed story cited in the charging documents was published on Tuesday, again drawing largely on information from SARs reports.

About two million suspicious activity reports were filed in 2017 by banks, money service businesses, casinos and others, according to FinCEN officials. On their own, suspicious activity reports often do not mean very much. But taken with other evidence, they can help guide investigators to specific transactions that might involve financial crimes.

The 18-page criminal complaint details a search of Edwards' phone and a flash drive she possessed, on which FBI agents say they found a lengthy digital trail of her interactions with the reporters, in which she shared SARS reports.