Michael Cohen Financial Records Mysteriously Disappear

From the days of Watergate, the catchphrase has been “follow the money,” but in the case of Michael Cohen part of the money trail seems to be missing. The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow broke the news in his latest story.

The financial records in question are tied to payments Cohen received from several corporations looking to gain access and intel in the new White House. Payments first reported by Stormy Daniels’ attorney Michael Avenatti. The New Yorker story says, “The payments to Cohen that have emerged in the past week come primarily from a single document, a “suspicious-activity report” filed by First Republic Bank, where Cohen’s shell company, Essential Consultants, L.L.C., maintained an account.”

Here’s an important excerpt from Farrow’s report:

The report also refers to two previous suspicious-activity reports, or sars, that the bank had filed, which documented even larger flows of questionable money into Cohen’s account. Those two reports detail more than three million dollars in additional transactions—triple the amount in the report released last week. Which individuals or corporations were involved remains a mystery. But, according to the official who leaked the report, these sars were absent from the database maintained by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or fincen. The official, who has spent a career in law enforcement, told me, “I have never seen something pulled off the system. . . . That system is a safeguard for the bank. It’s a stockpile of information. When something’s not there that should be, I immediately became concerned.” The official added, “That’s why I came forward.”

Farrow talked about his report on Good Morning America today.