BREAKING: Treasury Dept whistleblower Natalie May Edwards, our source whose brave disclosures exposed financial corruption on a global scale & formed the basis of our award-winning #FinCENFiles investigation, has just been released from federal prison buzzfeed.com/anthonycormier…
May Edwards just told @a_cormier_, minutes after she was released from prison: “This chapter is officially closed. I will not be silenced anymore. My story will be told.” buzzfeed.com/anthonycormier…
May (@3_Whistleblower)
served nearly five of her 6 month sentence.
Her sentence was unjust and unfair. Her disclosures have sparked AML reforms in the US and around the world.
I spoke with her a little while ago. I'm so relieved she's been released and is now with her family.
Thank you to everyone who sent May books (especially @brazendyke for setting up & managing the Amazon page) and wrote her letters and contributed to the GoFundMe set up by @Winter
There's still a long way to go to help May get back on her feet
NEW: @BuzzFeedNews & I sued the govt under #FOIA for docs about it's sale of Wu-Tang Clan's Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. We obtained amazing new pics of it, bill of sale, purchase agreement & more. But govt claims sale price of album is a trade secret! buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonl…
Thanks to our #FOIA atty @jloevy for working to get these Wu-Tang docs released on our behalf!
According to a copy of the five-page purchase agreement, the album was sealed with “tamper-proof evidence tape” and delivered to the new owners “in that state.”
This year, the US government continued to try and stonewall my attempts to pry loose documents via #FOIA. So @BuzzFeedNews & I filed dozens of public records lawsuits against recalcitrant agencies. We prevailed and we broke news.
Here's some of my greatest hits.
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January: These Emails Reveal The Drama Behind The GSA’s Decision Not To Certify Biden’s Win
The release of these JFK assassination records is in response to a memo Biden issued in Oct, which also allowed agencies to postpone the release of other docs "to protect against identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations," etc
These are some of Michael Caputo's emails I obtained via #FOIA that led HHS to take corrective action after OSC investigated.
On Nov. 15, Timothy Cheng, an attorney in OSC's investigation and prosecution division, sent a letter to @OpenTheGov & @GovAcctProj confirming that HHS violated the law
I have been reporting on CIA on and off for more than 15 yrs. But everything the agency does is considered classified at some level. So obtaining info about an operation or a program or what's taking place behind the scenes at the agency means relying on anonymous sources
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The best way to keep a check on intel agencies like CIA & to learn about what's going on inside the agency is by requesting via FOIA inspector general reports from closed investigations
That's what I did. I first requested copies of reports from closed investigations in 2012
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ALSO: I obtained hundreds of other CIA IG via #FOIA & I'm sharing them all here. More than 3K pages covering a wide range of investigations such as an employee who used government computer systems to resell more than 700 items purchased at yard sales. documentcloud.org/documents/2111…
More recent reports show that a CIA employee was investigated in October 2018 for using agency computer systems and databases to conduct “unofficial searches” on her brother, and that the IG substantiated allegations that year that another CIA employee violated the Hatch Act
In the Hatch Act case, the CIA IG found the employee used their work computer to make donations to political campaigns
CIA worked w/the Office of Special Counsel. But OSC opted not to punish the employee
Here's where it gets meta: I FOIA'd OSC for docs abt it & they GLOMAR'd me