The Treasury Department’s inspector general has launched a probe into a possible leak of the banking records of President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, The Washington Post reported.
The news comes a day after detailed claims about the banking history of Cohen’s company were revealed by Michael Avenatti, whose porn star client, Stormy Daniels, was paid $130,000 before the election to keep quiet about her alleged affair with Trump.
Inspector General Eric Thorson launched an investigation in response to media reports, counsel Rich Delmar told the Post.
A document posted on Twitter by Avenatti purportedly showed that Cohen received $500,000 last year from Columbus Nova, the U.S.-based affiliate of Renova Group, a company founded by Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg. The business magnate attended Trump’s inauguration and has reportedly been interviewed by prosecutors in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.
The document also alleged Cohen’s company, Essential Consultants, received payments from others with business considerations before the federal government, including telecommunications giant AT&T, aircraft manufacturer Korea Aerospace Industries and pharmaceutical company Novartis. All three companies subsequently confirmed the payments.
Avenatti has been calling on the Treasury Department to release reports of unusual banking transactions by Cohen.
“The source or sources of our information is our work product and nobody’s business,” Avenatti said. “They can investigate all they want, but what they should be doing is releasing to the American public the three Suspicious Activity Reports filed on Michael Cohen’s account. Why are they hiding this information?”
Federal law requires banks to file Suspicious Activity Reports on unusual transactions that might signal a crime. Experts say the information Avenatti published appears to have come from such reports.
“This has the appearance of a leak,” Daniel Stipano, former deputy chief counsel in the Treasury’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, told the Post. “It shouldn’t happen, but things leak.”
Stipano said hundreds, if not thousands, of officials in law enforcement and government have access to a database of SARs.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.