Cohen Bank Records Leaker Comes Forward

The leaked financial records were Suspicious Activity Reports, leaked from Trump's Treasury Department's Financial Crime Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the bureau that collects/analysizes records of financial transactions to weed out evidence of financial crimes.

The leaker says he released them when he discovered that two of three First Republic filed SARs in their database were found to be missing.

Missing Files Motivated the Leak of Michael Cohen’s Financial Records

The report also refers to two previous suspicious-activity reports, or SARs, that the bank had filed, which documented even larger flows of questionable money into Cohen’s account. Those two reports detail more than three million dollars in additional transactions—triple the amount in the report released last week. Which individuals or corporations were involved remains a mystery. But, according to the official who leaked the report, these SARs were absent from the database maintained by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN. The official, who has spent a career in law enforcement, told me, “I have never seen something pulled off the system. . . . That system is a safeguard for the bank. It’s a stockpile of information. When something’s not there that should be, I immediately became concerned.” The official added, “That’s why I came forward.”

So it turns out there were two more SARs that were not released, which detailed the other millions that Crony Cohen is known to have solicited from company's looking to buy access to the White House.

The SARs were filed because compliance officers at First Republic had flagged the transactions as suspicious and possibly evidence of money laundering.

First Republic’s compliance officers later began flagging Cohen’s transactions in the account as possible signs of money laundering. Among other potential violations, the documents cite “suspicion concerning the source of funds,” “suspicious EFT/ wire transfers,” “suspicious use of multiple accounts,” and “transaction with no apparent economic, business, or lawful purpose.” (A spokesperson for First Republic Bank declined to comment.)

The one that was leaked was the most recent of the three. It covered September 2017 - January 2018. According to the reporting, the others covered a three-month period just before the leaked one and another that had transactions spanning seven earlier months (though not necessarily the seven months through May).

Some of what is missing can be pieced together from a separate SAR from Morgan Stanley:

A substantial portion of this money seems to have ended up in Cohen’s personal accounts. Morgan Stanley Smith Barney filed a separate SAR showing that, during that same three-month period, Cohen set up two accounts with the firm, into which he deposited three checks from his Essential Consultants account, two in the amount of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and one in the amount of five hundred and five thousand dollars. 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).”

From the leaked SAR that Avenatti drew from:

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.” David Murray, a former Treasury official focussed on illicit finance, told me, “There are a ton of red flags here. The pattern of activity has indicators that are inherently suspicious, and the volume and source of funds do not match the account profile that was built when the account was opened.

This is also interesting:

Other banks also noticed Cohen’s suspicious transactions and filed their own SARs about his activity. Some of those show the banks piecing together the reasons for the transactions from news reports, citing articles from publications including the Wall Street Journal and Vanity Fair about Trump, Russia, and secret election-season payments, including the payment to Clifford. One, filed by City National Bank, follows money paid to Cohen by Elliott Broidy, at the time the deputy finance chairman for the Republican National Committee. The report notes, “Broidy also owns a private security company, Circinus, which provides services to the U.S. and other governments. The company has hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts with the U.A.E.”

So why are these other two SARs from First Republic in the database? There's only speculation and it varies. The article cites "Seven former government officials and other experts familiar with the Treasury Department’s FinCEN database" and opinions seem to span OMGOMGOMG to maybe they were restricted. (though nobody opining seemed to know of a mechanism for restricting access to records)

Something else I'm reading for the first time here is that the payment from Korea Aerospace Industries (majority state owned by SK) came the same month that Trump was visiting South Korea (Nov 2017) and while the company was lobbying Congress for a multi-billion dollar contract.

For my fan club: Not saying I told you so but...

Another possibility is they were leaked out of the Treasury Department's FinCEN division.

a reply to: theantediluvian

Another daily dead horse beating, imagine that.

At this point I believe Cohen was a middle man between Trump and the countless mobsters he would have to do business with to get his buildings built in NYC and New Jersey. Kind of a buffer so Trump can keep his hands relatively clean and have no direct links.

In fact that’s pretty much what Cohen admits to when he admits to being a “fixer”, because that’s what a fixer does in his line of work.

I’m really curious, who would have the power to remove those SARS from the database? And who is in the Treasury Department that Trump could press to have them removed? If it comes out that Trump has a hand in removing those SARs, I think we’re entering an entirely new level of corruption. The mob may now have in the White House who they wished JFK was.

a reply to: TinfoilTP

I love how when I post, there's about 5-6 of you who rush to be the first in with a lame ass attempt at trolling. If you really didn't care, you wouldn't be on the first page of half my threads trying to tell me how much you don't care. You'd ignore them.

a reply to: TinfoilTP

Oh look another trumpet ignoring the evidence that this moron may have colluded with Russia. The thing I believe is, he may be innocent, not because he is a good guy but because he is too stupid to have been the mastermind of anything. LOL

More like someone came to him and said we are going to get you elected and he said how, they said can't tell you too hush hush AKA your too stupid to let you in on the details plus you would probably open your big mouth accidentally.

Dems should run a 5 year old next time, it may get them more republican votes, I mean they elected Trump...and the kid would be more coherent and smarter and if the kid is not that smart or coherent, they would vote for the kid and then say this kid speaks to us in away we can understand.

originally posted by: TinfoilTP
a reply to: theantediluvian

Another daily dead horse beating, imagine that.

Yeah that doesn’t exactly work here. Someone has been removing Treasury Department records to cover for Cohen. If you don’t find that shady, I really don’t know what to tell you.

originally posted by: theantediluvian

Missing Files Motivated the Leak of Michael Cohen’s Financial Records

But, according to the official who leaked the report, these SARs were absent from the database

So the illegal leaker makes a claim something is mysteriously missing.

BwaaaaHaHaHa

IG report coming soon just the same.

😀

a reply to: underwerks

Bet the Leaker had something to do with the "deleted" files.

😎🚬

originally posted by: FakeNews9999
a reply to: TinfoilTP

Oh look another trumpet ignoring the evidence that this moron may have colluded with Russia. The thing I believe is, he may be innocent, not because he is a good guy but because he is too stupid to have been the mastermind of anything. LOL

More like someone came to him and said we are going to get you elected and he said how, they said can't tell you too hush hush AKA your too stupid to let you in on the details plus you would probably open your big mouth accidentally.

Dems should run a 5 year old next time, it may get them more republican votes, I mean they elected Trump...and the kid would be more coherent and smarter and if the kid is not that smart or coherent, they would vote for the kid and then say this kid speaks to us in away we can understand.

I'd put his IQ up against any of these Collusion droolers, not many can match his bank account either.

Bunch of fringe jealous lunatics but that's ok, Trump has used his high IQ to turn it all to his advantage. Deregulations with near zero opposition because not a peep of it in the news, they'd rather focus on only porn stars and bankrupt lawyers once the Russia nothingburger fell out of the bun.

a reply to: theantediluvian

Have to wonder, why leak?

Why not go through the proper channels, like someone in Muellers camp or the prosecutor who is looking into this?

a reply to: FakeNews9999

Please cite the US code for collusion.

originally posted by: theantediluvian
a reply to: TinfoilTP

I love how when I post, there's about 5-6 of you who rush to be the first in with a lame ass attempt at trolling. If you really didn't care, you wouldn't be on the first page of half my threads trying to tell me how much you don't care. You'd ignore them.

CareWeMust!

If it walks like a "Diversion" and quacks like a Diversion...

originally posted by: carewemust

originally posted by: theantediluvian
a reply to: TinfoilTP

I love how when I post, there's about 5-6 of you who rush to be the first in with a lame ass attempt at trolling. If you really didn't care, you wouldn't be on the first page of half my threads trying to tell me how much you don't care. You'd ignore them.

CareWeMust!

If it walks like a "Diversion" and quacks like a Diversion...

Call it an OIG report.

The amount of distraction from the usual suspects of ATS says to me that I should follow this one...

I wonder if the missing reports were classified? Classifying them would allow someone in the Trump circle to hide that reports from most people but keep the deniability of trying to hide them for nefarious reasons.

Or were they hidden by law enforcement to hide the scope of the investigation from potential targets?

Hell they could just have been straight up deleted to cover up a crime.

I would love to see the database logs to get an idea what happened.

originally posted by: theantediluvian
a reply to: TinfoilTP

I love how when I post, there's about 5-6 of you who rush to be the first in with a lame ass attempt at trolling. If you really didn't care, you wouldn't be on the first page of half my threads trying to tell me how much you don't care. You'd ignore them.

LOL
That’s what I have been doing for your last 1000 anti-Trump threads.

If this same thing were attached to Obama or Hillary this thread would be front page already.

a reply to: theantediluvian

Today has been crazy news wise. New stories have been coming out every hour for hours now. What is going on in Washington?

originally posted by: Pyle
a reply to: theantediluvian

Today has been crazy news wise. New stories have been coming out every hour for hours now. What is going on in Washington?

The MSM is buttering-up the crowd for the coming stye of an IG report.

😎🚬🎁