Michael Avenatti is the sketchy lawyer for porn star Stormy Daniels. Following a similar approach deployed by Fusion-GPS, in a rush to spread rumors and accusations Avenatti has pushed stolen documents from Treasury Department filings to his allies in the media.
The documents appear to come from frequently submitted bank filings and treasury notifications known as Currency Transaction Reports (CTR’s), and Suspicious Activity Reports (SAR’s). SAR’s and CTR’s are compliance forms filed by organizations who engage in financial services.
Every organization from mortgage providers, to international financial institutions, to local U.S. main street banks, all the way to Western Union and convenience stores who generate money orders, are required to file CTR’s and SAR’s as part of the Treasury Department Banking Secretaries Act; a law requiring anyone engaged in financial services to assist government agencies in detecting and preventing money laundering.
At some point every person reading here has likely had a report filled out by a financial provider, submitting their details within a financial transaction, filed with the Treasury department. You never know about it, because it’s part of compliance reporting.
Somehow the sketchy lawyer for Stormy Daniels obtained a list of treasury filings attached to the name Michael Cohen; the same name as President Trump’s lawyer. It is likely someone within the Treasury Department, or the DOJ with search access to the Treasury Department, leaked this list to Michael Avenatti in an effort to assist his dubious motives.
Unfortunately, at least two of the people Avenatti is now accusing of scurrilous financial transactions are not the same Michael Cohen the dubious lawyer is seeking to attack. One is a Canadian Michael Cohen, the other is an Israeli Michael Cohen; both have financial transactions in the United States. The latter just sending his brother money.
This is what happens when you put names in search engines within government records. There are always multiple people with the same name. You might remember the wrong Michael Cohen was identified in the Steele Dossier as traveling to Prague, part of a similarly intended and motivated accusation.
The previous incorrect search result on ‘Cohen travel’, contained in the Clinton-Steele Dossier, likely came from unlawful FISA-702(17) “about” queries (opposition research) and was passed along from Fusion-GPS to Steele -laundered into an intelligence product- and later passed back to the FBI via the dossier. Today’s incorrect search results likely came from a U.S. government agency with access to Treasury Department records.
The U.S. Treasury Department has now opened an internal Inspector General investigation to see if they can find out who accessed the records, conducted an unauthorized search under the search name “Michael Cohen”, and unlawfully passed the results to the porn star’s lawyer, Michael Avenatti.
WASHINGTON – The Treasury Department’s inspector general is investigating whether confidential banking information related to a company controlled by President Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen may have been leaked, a spokesman said.
Rich Delmar, counsel to the inspector general, said that in response to media reports the office is “inquiring into allegations” that Suspicious Activity Reports on Cohen’s banking transactions were “improperly disseminated.”
Detailed claims about Cohen’s banking history were made public Tuesday by Michael Avenatti, an attorney for Stormy Daniels, the adult-film star who was paid $130,000 by Cohen shortly before the 2016 election to keep quiet about her alleged affair with Trump.
On Twitter, Avenatti circulated a dossier that purports to show that Cohen was hired last year by the U.S.-based affiliate of a Russian company owned by Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian business magnate who attended Trump’s inauguration and was recently subjected to sanctions by the U.S. government. The affiliate, New York investment firm Columbus Nova, confirmed the payment, saying it was for consulting on investments and other matters, but denied any involvement by Vekselberg. (read more)
As most people are now aware there are employees and contractors within the U.S. government now weaponizing their access to personal records in an effort to attack their political opposition. This should not be a surprise….
President Obama unlocked the door to weaponizing government against ordinary citizens when his Attorney General Eric Holder and the Treasury Department, via the IRS, gathered lists of U.S. persons who donated to Tea Party groups.
Ms. Lois Lerner, an IRS Administrator with access to IRS records of groups who filed under 501c(3)(4), passed to the DOJ over 1 million names from the “Schedule B” filings of those groups. The filings were contained in 21 CD-ROM’s the IRS gave to AG Eric Holder to generate the admitted “secret research project”.
The people and companies listed as contributing to Tea Party groups were then targeted by additional government agencies. The IRS admitted to what took place and a class action lawsuit was quietly settled. However, in doing this a Pandora’s box was opened.
The Obama approach of using government databases to research political opposition never stopped. A similar outcome was later evidenced in the FISA-702(16)(17) admissions by the FBI and Department of Justice – National Security Division in 2016:
Agents, employees, private contractors, and entities within government agencies with political motives and agendas, how have the ability to weaponize information against people they consider their political opposition.
This was always the danger of allowing corrupt left-wing ideologues to have the ability to control the mechanics of government. This is part of Obama’s “fundamental change” that people allowed in 2009 through 2017.
After eight years of access and promotion of the processes, there are now thousands of like-minded political ideologues within government that will abuse their access to data in an effort to assist their allies. Leaking information has evolved into specific targeting as the process has become more refined and frequent.
The discovered conversations between Lisa Page (DOJ), Peter Strzok (FBI), and communications director Michael Kortan (FBI) leaking information to their allies in the media is simply an extension of this continued approach. The connective tissue between the media who receive information and the political legal groups who use the information is becoming less and less opaque each day.
We see this in the relationship between the Clinton-DNC, Fusion-GPS, the intelligence apparatus and the media. They were/are working in common cause.
We see this in names like Daniel Richman, the friend of FBI Director James Comey who received the Comey Memos; a friend who was granted access to the FBI database.
We also see this in names like Benjamin Wittes, the operator of the Lawfare Blog and group of like-minded allies, also friends of James Comey. We see evidence of this weaponization and ideological alignment with FBI Chief Legal Counsel James Baker going to work for Lawfare Blog.
Corrupt government officials; corrupt intelligence officials; corrupt media officials; corrupt legal officials; and corrupt political officials, all connected as part of one larger apparatus with one ideological and political intent.
The use of the weaponized information by a porn star’s lawyer is a corrupt continuance, nothing more.
