US Treasury employee accused of leaking bank records involving Paul Manafort and Rick Gates
Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards is accused of leaking confidential bank records to a journalist starting in 2017; the reporter and the news organisation are not identified, but the articles cited by prosecutors were written by journalists at BuzzFeed
A senior Treasury Department employee was charged with leaking confidential bank records pertaining to suspicious transactions involving Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, the Russian embassy and Maria Butina, who has been accused of being a Russian agent.
Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, a senior adviser at the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, which targets illicit use of the US financial system, was arrested on Tuesday and accused of leaking suspicious activity reports (SARs) to a journalist starting in 2017 and continuing until this week.
The reporter and the news organisation are not identified, but the articles cited by prosecutors were written by journalists at BuzzFeed – the most recent having been published on Monday.
BuzzFeed declined to comment on the arrest. Edwards’s lawyer, Peter D. Greenspun, did not respond to a message seeking comment.
The case marks another effort by US officials to crack down on leaks to the news media of non-public information.