Treasury Department official gets six months in prison for leaking documents on wire transfers with Trump, Manafort, the Russian embassy and a Moscow spy
A former senior U.S. Treasury Department employee who pleaded guilty to conspiring to give a reporter sensitive information about Donald Trump's onetime campaign chairman Paul Manafort and others was sentenced on Thursday to six months in prison.
Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, a former senior adviser in Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Gregory Woods in Manhattan.
Edwards was accused of making unauthorized disclosures of suspicious activity reports (SARs) - used by banks to alert law enforcement to potential money laundering and other crimes - to a BuzzFeed News reporter using an encrypted messaging program.
Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards leaves court after receiving a six-month prison sentence for leaking confidential financial reports to a journalist at Buzzfeed, Thursday June 3, 2021, in New York
Prosecutors said the more than 2,000 reports leaked over one year concerned Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates, who both oversaw Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, as well as the Russian embassy in Washington and other individuals.
The reports were a basis for articles concerning former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
Edwards, 43, of Quinton, Virginia, had sought no prison time, after being charged in October 2018 and pleading guilty in January 2020.
Natalie Mayflower Edwards
Before being sentenced, she called herself a whistleblower who went to the media after uncovering suspicious conduct elsewhere at the Treasury Department.
Citing principles from her American Indian background, she said before being sentenced she could not 'stand by' in silence, but apologized for her disclosures.
Woods said 'blowing the whistle through proper channels is an incredibly valuable exercise,' but that Edwards went too far by disclosing about 50,000 records, including the SARs.
'Dr. Sours Edwards decided to abuse her position of trust,' he said.
Woods said it should have been 'exceptionally clear' that 'violating her oath and exposing sensitive law enforcement information that could be used to help the bad guys and to tarnish the reputations and interests of innocent people was both illegal and wrong.'
Edwards called herself a whistleblower, but a federal judge said she 'decided to abuse her position of trust'
Edwards admitted to leaking financial information about former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort, who was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison
Other disclosures involved former Trump deputy campaign manager Rick Gates, who cooperated with authorities in the Russia probe
Prosecutors said the more than 2,000 reports leaked over one year concerned Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates, who both oversaw Trump's 2016 presidential campaign
Federal prosecutor Kimberly Ravener said Edwards' 'rampant disclosure of private information' was 'unparalleled' in FinCEN history, and could have a chilling effect on banks' willingness to file detailed SARs.
'She claimed that she followed procedure. But she made up her own,' Ravener said.
Edwards was also sentenced to three years supervised release. The BuzzFeed reporter, Jason Leopold, was not accused of wrongdoing. He embraced Edwards after meeting her outside the courthouse following the sentencing.
'I do apologize for the disclosure of that information,' Edwards said before sentencing.
She said she 'could not stand by aimlessly,' Buzfeed reported.
Konstantin Kilimnik
Buzzfeed spokesman Matt Mittenthal in a statement condemned the sentence and called Edwards 'a brave whistleblower who fought to warn the public about grave risks to America's national security, first through the official whistleblower process, and then through the press.'
An October 2017 Buzzfeed reported identified 13 wire transfers totaling $3 million involving Manafort, who would later be sentenced to 7 1/2 years on corruption charges. President Trump pardoned him before leaving office.
The story contained detailed information on transfers, including one by the Manafort-affiliated Global Endeavor in 2013, to Konstantin Kilimnik, identified at the time as a 'Kiev-based political operator.' The Senate Intelligence Committee last year identified Kilimnik as a Russian intelligence officer.
No comments