Thursday, May 17, 2018

 

PMT: Docs removed from FINCEN? Bombshell!


When I was a prosecutor, one of the tools we had access to (even back then) was a remarkable financial database at the Treasury Department: the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FINCEN.  Among the documents available at FINCEN were "Suspicious Activity Reports," which banks were required to file when transactions raised certain red flags. Because much of the most serious systemic crime-- from drug trafficking to terrorism-- runs on a flow of money, these are very useful.

In a recent report in the New Yorker,  recent Pulitzer-winner Ronan Farrow reveals something that will in the end be a big deal in the Mueller investigation (if it is true). Apparently, two SARS reports relating to large transactions by Michael Cohen were removed from the FINCEN database. Which... well, that just does not happen at random. Certainly, Mueller could have gotten the same information from other sources (particularly within Cohen's own records or those of the bank), but the removal on its own could be a suspect action.

Who removed them?

That is the question Mueller will want answered (provided that he or the US Attorney for the SDNY did not remove them, which seems a small possibility). And it will be discovered. If the culprit is a political actor trying to remove the documents from view because of their damaging nature to the President, he or she will be prosecuted. This is the clearest example of obstruction of justice one can imagine, short of shooting a witness.

For a prosecutor, this is a big deal, and the prosecutors will be extremely motivated. They care so much because this crime, in particular, strikes at the integrity of the very tools they are supposed to rely on. Don't mess with a worker's tools-- there will be hell to pay.

Comments:
Wow! Fascinating. Finally the bombshell we have all been waiting for. Something obvious and easy to understand. I look forward to seeing this play out.

BTW: when I click on the link to the New Yorker article, I get your latest piece in the Trib (which, by the way, was very well done!).
 
I heard about this last night when Rachel Maddow interviewed Rowan Farrow. I would like to think that Mueller had already perused FINCEN, probably one of the first things his team did? Hopefully Cohen was on a short list way back at the beginning. And they did speculate that he (Mueller) might have had a block placed on the two missing records but referenced SARs.

This is certainly a valid question for Mueller and he could respond with a simple Yes or No. If he says Yes, it means that it is something pretty serious for Cohen to worry about. If he says No, then someone in the Treasury Department is going to be in hot water.
 
Oops- sorry about that Farmer! Since I am at a Culver’s in Benton Harbor, I will have to fix that later....
 
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