Another "Honorable" (Cough,Cough) Federal Employee

Treasury Official Charged with Leaking Confidential Reports on Trump Advisers to BuzzFeed

By Randy DeSoto 
October 17, 2018 at 12:47pm

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A senior U.S. Treasury official has been arrested on charges of leaking sensitive financial reports concerning ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and other individuals to BuzzFeed News.

A complaint released by the Justice Department on Wednesday details that Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, 40, a senior adviser at Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, began leaking documents known as Suspicious Activity Reports beginning in October 2017 and continued throughout the past year.

In addition to Manafort, “the highly confidential documents allegedly leaked by the employee also were related to former Trump campaign official Richard Gates, accused Russian agent Maria Butina, a suspected Russian money laundering entity and the Russian Embassy in Washington, according to a criminal complaint,” CNBC reported.

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Edwards has been charged with one count of unauthorized disclosures of SARs and one count of conspiracy to make unauthorized disclosures of the reports.

“Banks file SARs confidentially in order to tip off law enforcement to potentially illegal financial transactions,” according to The Hill.

TRENDING: The Anti-Trump Riots Are a Smoke Screen. The Real Goal: Eliminate the Electoral College

The unauthorized document disclosures by Edwards are said in the complaint to have provided the basis for 12 news articles published by an unnamed news organization.

However, the document does list the headlines for six articles, which were published by BuzzFeed between October 2017 and as recently as this week.

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Federal prosecutors said that Edwards “was in possession of a flash drive” that appeared to be the same device “on which she saved the unlawfully disclosed SARs.”

She also had in her possession “a cellphone containing numerous communications over an encrypted application in which she transmitted SARs and other sensitive government information.”

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“When questioned by law enforcement officials (Tuesday), Edwards confessed she has provided SARs to (the reporter) via an encrypted application, through falsely denied knowing that (the reporter) intended to or did publish that information” through a news organization, the complaint stated.

The BuzzFeed articles, by Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier, seek to draw connections between Trump and his presidential campaign and Russian interests.

“The articles cited documents transactions pertaining to Manafort and Gates, both of whom have since pleaded guilty to financial crimes related to their consulting work for a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine,” CNBC reported.

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In a Monday story, BuzzFeed reported on dealings of the Russian-owned real estate company Prevezon Holdings. An attorney for the company helped arrange the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Manafort, Jared Kushner and Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya, which had been billed to the campaign as a chance to get some “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.

Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement, “Edwards, a senior-level FinCEN employee, betrayed her position of trust by repeatedly disclosing highly sensitive information contained in Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) to an individual not authorized to receive them. “

“SARs, which are filed confidentially by banks and other financial institutions to alert law enforcement to potentially illegal transactions, are not public documents, and it is an independent federal crime to disclose them outside of one’s official duties,” Berman said.

In January 2017, then-President-elect Trump labeled Buzzfeed “fake news” for publishing the unverified Trump Russia dossier.

Lies The White House Tells: Less Than 4 Percent Of Taxpayers Will Pay A Penalty. What A Crock!

Obamacare Could Affect Up to 29 Percent of Taxpayers

Wednesday, 28 Jan 2015 05:32 PM

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The Obama administration estimates that up to 29 percent of U.S. taxpayers could have to take the law known as Obamacare into account as they complete their 2014 income tax returns, officials said on Wednesday.
Two to 4 percent are expected to pay a penalty for failing to obtain health coverage last year under President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, according to official estimates.
Treasury and healthcare officials told reporters that 3 percent to 5 percent could have to reconcile the federal subsidies they received to help pay for health coverage in 2014, if fluctuations in their income led them to receive too much or too little assistance.
Another 10 percent to 20 percent of taxpayers are expected to use their tax filings to seek exemptions from the law's coverage requirements. That would constitute 15 million to 20 million people.

The estimates are based on U.S. Treasury expectations for about 150 million income tax filings, which are due to the Internal Revenue Service by an April 15 deadline.
This year marks the first time that the public must take health coverage into account as part of their tax calculations. The administration said it would work with nearly a dozen tax preparers and nonprofit groups to help consumers navigate the new requirements.

The IRS is also waiving penalties that people might otherwise face if they were found to owe insurance subsidies back to the federal government.The group includes tax preparers H&R Block Inc., Jackson Hewitt Tax Service Inc. and Intuit Inc , whose products include TurboTax.
The Affordable Care Act requires most Americans to have health coverage and fines eligible consumers who failed to obtain it in 2014 $95 or 1 percent of household income, whichever is higher. The penalty is set to rise in 2015 and 2016.
Most of the 6.7 million people who were enrolled in private coverage through online insurance exchanges at the end of 2014 received federal subsidies, based on their income, to help pay for premiums or other expenses. Still others received subsidies but did not remain in the markets for the entire year, officials said.

Those whose incomes fluctuated over the year could now owe money back or qualify for a tax windfall.
The Department of Health and Human Services is sending out 4 million official forms that will specify the amount of federal subsidies consumers received after enrolling in health coverage through the federal website, Healthcare.gov.

© 2015 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.

One Trillion Of Student Loans--The Next Big Crisis

US Treasury Sounds Alarm Over Student Loans

Tuesday, 29 Apr 2014 06:19 PM

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Deputy U.S. Treasury Secretary Sarah Bloom Raskin sounded the alarm Tuesday on student loans in the U.S., where the number of people defaulting is on the rise.
At least 40 million people have taken out a student loan, Raskin said, and by the time students graduate, the average amount of loans is $30,000, and they will spend ten years or more repaying.
And many never manage to repay them at all, Raskin said during a speech at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).
"While delinquency rates on many other types of debt have fallen in recent years, delinquencies on student loan debt are rising," said the Treasury's second highest-ranking official, noting that some seven million Americans had defaulted on their student loans.
At the end of 2013, the total amount of U.S. student loans approached $1.1 trillion, well above the total amount of credit card debt in the country.
And the percentage of students graduating with debt is on the rise — 60 percent of graduates in 2012, compared to just 30 percent in 1993.
"These numbers are daunting; to what extent should we be concerned?" Raskin asked, emphasizing that such figures could have an impact on the rate of economic growth in the country.
Late payments and defaulting on student loans could later hinder the borrower from being able to get other loans, including mortgages and car loans.
And sometimes, she said, defaulting on a student loan could hinder a candidate from getting a job, because employers often check credit history and consider past problems to be a sign of irresponsibility.
The large majority of student loans in the United States are financed by the federal government, but distributed by agents or private banks.
Raskin, who left the Federal Reserve to join the Treasury Department last month, called on these lenders to make it easier to modify payment plans for borrowers who find themselves struggling to meet their obligations.

(Revised April 30)
© AFP 2014

On This Tax Due Day, A Story About How The Treasury Is Going After Citizens For Money They Believe Is Owed The Government, Regardless Of How Old The Debt Might Be. Another Sign That The End Is Near.

Tuesday,April 15, 2014 [Editor's Note: The following post is by TDV Editor-in-Chief, Jeff Berwick] All of the sudden the government lays claims to your savings. They can't prove you owe them a dime, but you're deprived due process. The legal bills become overwhelming, and so you let your money be stolen. You simply have no choice. Sound outlandish? It's not. Not in the "Land of the Free" at least.  For example, the US government began intercepting Mary Grice's tax refunds without any warning this tax season. Grice was unaware of the situation until she got a letter stating that her refund had gone to satisfy old debt to the government. Very old debt...In fact, debt she didn't even know about. That debt stems back to 1960, when Grice was 4, around the time her father died, leaving her mother with five children to raise. Until the kids turned 18, her mother Sadie Grice got survivor benefits from Social Security to help feed and clothe them. But, according to Social Security, something went awry.  Social Security now claims it overpaid someone in the Grice family – though it is not sure whom - in 1977. After 37 years of silence, four years after Sadie Grice died, the government is coming after the daughter. She is not the only one.  Hundreds of thousands of taxpayers will receive letters like the one Grice got. Because of some unknown debt they never even knew about, that might not have anything to do with them, the government is confiscating their money. They won't have their day in court, in most cases, because they don't have the money to fight. Already in 2014, the US Treasury Department has "intercepted" $1.9 billion in tax refunds, $75 million of which has been delinquent for more than ten years. The effort to collect old debts was ratcheted up in the last three years, the result of a sentence tucked into the farm bill lifting the 10-year statute of limitations on old debts to Uncle Sam. Social Security, the Treasury Department and Congress have all denied seeking the change. Why now? “We have an obligation to current and future Social Security beneficiaries to attempt to recoup money that people received when it was not due," says Social Security spokeswoman Dorothy Clark. Since the effort to collect old debts began in 2011, the Treasury Department has collected $424 million in debts that were over 10 years old. The Social Security Administration has found 400,000 taxpayers who collectively owe $714 million on debts over 10 years old. The agency expects to have begun proceedings against all of those people by the summer. “It was a shock,” said Grice, 58. “What incenses me is the way they went about this. They gave me no notice, they can’t prove that I received any overpayment, and they use intimidation tactics, threatening to report this to the credit bureaus.” Grice filed a suit against the Social Security Administration alleging they violated her right to due process by holding her responsible for the $2,996 debt supposedly incurred under her father's Social Security number. On its website, The Federal Trade Commission states “family members typically are not obligated to pay the debts of a deceased relative from their own assets.” But Social Security sees it differently. If a child indirectly receives funds from public money paid to the parent, the children's money is fair game. “The craziest part of this whole thing is the way the government seizes a child’s money to satisfy a debt that child never even knew about,” says Robert Vogel, Grice’s attorney. “They’ll say that somebody got paid for that child’s benefit, but the child had no control over the money and there’s no way to know if the parent ever used the money for the benefit of that kid...Can the government really bring back to life a case that was long dead? Can it really be right to seize a child’s money to satisfy a parent’s debt?” Although Grice has a lawyer, most taxpayers whose refunds have been taken say they are unable to contest the confiscations because of the cost. The Treasury initially held the full amount of Grice’s federal and state refunds, a total of $4,462. Last week, after The Washington Post inquired about Grice’s case, and then the government returned the part of her refund above the $2,996 owed on her father’s account. But unless the feds can prove that she ever received any of the overpayment, Grice wants all of her money back. “Look, I love a good fight, especially for principle,” she said. “My mom used to say, ‘This country is carried on the backs of the little people,’ and now I see what she meant. This is really sad.” Does one need more evidence that the federal government is bankrupt? It's grasping at every last penny it can get by inserting legislation deep inside bills that the House of Representatives doesn't even read. One sentence is all that is needed for your savings to be confiscated. But don't worry, it is all to pay down a trifling US government debt: Of the hundreds of thousands who have claims by the Treasury or Social(ist) (In)Security against them only 10% win their cases and are absolved of forking over money. There is nothing you can do about bureaucracy once bureaucracy decides to come after you. In the future there will only be more of the same as government agencies seize funds, including the nationalization of IRAs and pensions. The best way to protect yourself is to get your funds and assets outside of the US preferably not even in your personal name. That is where The TDV Wealth Management Conference comes in.  Only here will you learn the ins-and-outs of the new American system, and the options available to you, as an American, at the end of empire. Don't miss out.  Click here to join the discussion at The Dollar Vigilante.

Anarcho-Capitalist.  Libertarian.  Freedom fighter against mankind’s two biggest enemies, the State and the Central Banks.  Jeff Berwick is the founder of The Dollar Vigilante, CEO of TDV Media & Services and host of the popular video podcast,Anarchast.  Jeff is a prominent speaker at many of the world’s freedom, investment and gold conferences as well as regularly in the media including CNBC, CNN and Fox Business