New Yorker: Missing Files Motivated Leak Of Cohen's Financial Records
CAMEROTA: The anonymous source who leaked Michael Cohen's financial records to the press is coming forward and wait until you hear the source's motivation. Ronan Farrow this bombshell report from "The New Yorker" and Ronan joins us now. Another bombshell, Ronan. Wow, this article that you've just published is incredible so let's go slowly through it. It's dense. OK. Last week, several news outlets reported Michael Cohen's LLC -- there was money coming in and out of there from places like Novartis, from Columbus Nova which had connections to the Russian oligarch.</s>RONAN FARROW, CONTRIBUTOR, "THE NEW YORKER": A Korean aerospace company that had a potential contract before the administration.</s>CAMEROTA: Yes, and</s>AT&T. FARROW: Yes.</s>CAMEROTA: OK. The source of that leak has now come forward to you about his or her motivation --</s>FARROW: Yes.</s>CAMEROTA: -- for doing this. What is it?</s>FARROW: This whistleblower says that upon searching a government database that is supposed to contain all the reports of suspicious bank activity, this person found several reports missing. Now, I should explain what these reports are. They're suspicious activity reports. That's what banks are legally required to file when they see activity that looks like fraud or money laundering. And we've seen some of these documents and they do, indeed, look like fishy payments involving foreign interests broken up into smaller payments. Things what would cause bank investigators to say hey, put a red flag on this. In the one document that was released last week which covers under a million dollars in transactions --</s>CAMEROTA: And this is, by the way, what Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels' lawyer, had access to and also released.</s>FARROW: Michael Avenatti released some summaries of Michael Cohen's transactions and you'd have to ask him about his exact sourcing for that. But, you know, I will say that we can verify that this whistleblower is the original source of why this stuff became public. And the reason, to your original question, is this person saw that in the release reports that we have now there are internal references to other reports covering more transactions. We're dealing with about a million dollars' worth of transactions now. There were also additional reports, Alisyn, covering three million- plus.</s>CAMEROTA: That went in and out of Michael Cohen's account.</s>FARROW: That went in and out of his account -- the main account at First National Bank. And those appear to be gone from a government database.</s>CAMEROTA: OK. Is your source Michael Avenatti's source?</s>FARROW: I can't speak to the exact chain of command of who had these documents at what point, other than to say that this is the source who originally made these public.</s>CAMEROTA: OK. This source says that he or she became alarmed when he noticed these two suspicious activity reports gone. How do they know that they're gone from the system and they're not masked somehow or moved somehow?</s>FARROW: So let's be careful about the term "gone." You're exactly right. One of the things we talk about at length in this story is all of the possible explanations, including many that could be, relatively speaking, more benign than what this whistleblower feared. It's possible -- the prosecutors we talked to and people experienced with the database that we talked to said that, for instance, the Southern District of New York or special counsel Mueller went in and said please quarantine these -- restrict them in some way. But what I'd highlight, Alisyn, is every expert we spoke to said that almost never happens. They didn't know of a procedure for doing that. So if indeed, that's the case it suggests that there is something very, very sensitive in these remaining reports.</s>CAMEROTA: Your source is taking a great personal risk to come to you to flag this. In fact, you write, "Of the potential for legal consequences, the official said (to you) to say that I am terrified right now would be an understatement. But referring to the released report, as well as the potential contents of the missing reports (the official also added) this is a terrifying time to be an American, to be in this situation, and to watch all of this unfold."</s>FARROW: And this is why, Alisyn, I'm being so careful about talking about, for instance, the chain of custody of these documents. It's very important in this case that as much as law enforcement is searching for this individual -- the inspector general of the Treasury has said we're looking for who disclosed these -- that I've got to protect this person's identity.</s>CAMEROTA: Because they're going to prosecute this source, I mean, is the thinking.</s>FARROW: I think quite possibly, yes. You know, look, according to what the legal penalties are this person could face exactly what you just described -- potentially, up to five years in prison for this. And the reason that this law enforcement official came forward is because this person was so troubled by what they viewed as clear examples of corruption in the existing reports and so concerned that at least some categories of law enforcement officials are no longer being given access to two remaining reports that potentially have even larger swaths of transactions in them. That was troubling enough to this veteran official that they said this has to be subject to public scrutiny.</s>CAMEROTA: Ronan Farrow, thank you very much for explaining all of your reporting to us. Thank you for bringing it to us. This will not be the last time that we talk.</s>FARROW: Good to be here. Thanks, Alisyn.</s>CAMEROTA: Great to have you -- Chris.</s>CUOMO: All right. If you are following along with the events of the Royals this weekend -- the big wedding -- there's a development. Meghan Markle releases an announcement just a couple of days before the wedding. What she's saying about who won't be there and why, next.