DOJ has filed criminal charges against a Treasury Dep't official alleging a conspiracy to leak confidential "suspicious activity reports" about Paul Manafort, Rick Gates and others to a BuzzFeed reporter. 
The official, a FinCen senior adviser, saved the encrypted messages she exchanged with a reporter. Agents said they found them after searching her cellphone.
DOJ alleges that the FinCen employee, Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, saved 24,000 suspicious activity reports to a thumb drive.
The government was able to use a pen register to determine, in real time, when Edwards was exchanging messages with a BuzzFeed reporter.
DOJ also determined that the reporter exchanged hundreds of messages with Edwards' supervisor, an assistant director of FinCen.
DOJ also obtained messages in which a BuzzFeed reporter appeared to help Edwards search for particular confidential records to leak.
Here's the complaint: justice.gov/usao-sdny/pres…
Here's the complaint: justice.gov/usao-sdny/pres…
DOJ says that ex-Trump aides Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, and others including Russian diplomats, were in fact the victims of a government leak conspiracy.
The charges also validate a lot of the reporting by @JasonLeopold and @a_cormier_ , confirming that it was based on actual bank records and that the matters being pursued by Mueller and others at DOJ. For example: buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonl…, buzzfeednews.com/article/anthon…, etc.
