A former senior Treasury Department official was sentenced to six months in prison for leaking thousands of confidential reports that fueled BuzzFeed stories on issues related to the Mueller investigation
NEW YORK — A former senior Treasury Department official was sentenced Thursday to six months in prison for leaking thousands of confidential reports on suspect financial transactions.
Edwards' defense attorney, Stephanie Carvlin, had asked for a sentence of “time served” — apparently referring to the day or so Edwards spent in custody following her arrest in Virginia in 2018.
Speaking in a forceful voice and reading from notes as she stood at the defense table, Edwards opened her statement by discussing her Native American roots. “I am an indigenous, matriarch warrior whose spirit cannot be broken,” she said. “It’s completely nonsensical. It’s a post hoc rationalization,” the prosecutor said. “Nothing about those claims was going to be resolved or addressed or exposed by releasing thousands of SARs … There is simply no cogent connection between her whistleblowing and this crime.”
“We’re not here because Dr. Sours Edwards blew the whistle,” added Woods, an appointee of former President Barack Obama. “We’re here because, at some point, Dr. Sours Edwards decided to abuse her position of trust.” Leopold sat quietly in the back of the courtroom during the nearly-two-hour sentencing hearing. He declined to comment to POLITICO as he left the courthouse, saying BuzzFeed would issue a statement on the development.
“I’m not saying Dr. Edwards deserves credit for that, judge,” the defense attorney said. “If we’re going to look at the horribles that might flow from that, the bad, we should also look at the benefits that flow from what she did,” "The journalists were neither subjects nor targets of the investigation,” Coley said. He suggested that, as with other such instances, investigators managed to get at least some of the phone records they desired, but not the details on who the reporters were exchanging emails with during the period in question.“Seizing the phone records of journalists profoundly undermines press freedom.
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