IRS employee charged with leaking Michael Cohen records to Michael Avenatti

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 22 February 2019

Federal prosecutors have charged Internal Revenue Service investigative analyst John Fry with leaking confidential suspicious-activity reports (SARs) about Michael Cohen, President Trump's former lawyer, to Michael Avenatti, the attorney representing porn actress Stormy Daniels, according to court documents unsealed in San Francisco on Thursday. SARs flag potentially unlawful bank transactions, and Fry reportedly admitted to describing and sending images of Cohen's SARs to Avenatti in May 2018 and discussing them with New Yorker journalist Ronan Farrow.

The Washington Post and Farrow's New Yorker soon published articles, based on the SARs, tracing Cohen's hush-money payments to Daniels to stay quiet about her purported extramarital affair with Trump. Both articles are cited in the government's criminal complaint. Cohen has since pleaded guilty to campaign finance law violations stemming from those payments, which he says he made on Trump's orders. The SARs also led to the discovery of other shady payments to Cohen.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.

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