By Devlin Barrett
August 14 at 7:04 PM
An Internal Revenue Service analyst pleaded guilty Wednesday to illegally disclosing sensitive financial records about President Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, in a leak case stemming from the Justice Department’s investigations of those close to the president.
John Fry, who had worked as an investigative analyst with the IRS in San Francisco, entered his plea in federal court there. Fry was charged in February with the unauthorized disclosure of suspicious activity reports, or SARs. Such reports are meant to flag potentially unlawful financial conduct to government investigators but do not necessarily indicate wrongdoing.
Fry pleaded guilty to one count. He is scheduled to be sentenced in December. The crime carries a possible prison term of up to five years.
“John Fry was given access to sensitive and powerful government databases containing people’s private financial information,†said David L. Anderson, the U.S. attorney in San Francisco. “And he was given that access in order to do his job as an investigative analyst. Fry thought that his politics were more important than his obligation to follow the law, and in that he was mistaken.â€...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/irs-analyst-pleads-guilty-to-leaking-michael-cohens-financial-records/2019/08/14/17e25d0c-bed4-11e9-a5c6-1e74f7ec4a93_story.html
