A law enforcement official in the Treasury Department said he leaked Michael Cohen’s financial records after he discovered that two important reports on Cohen’s financial activity were missing from a government database. No one knows why the records are missing, and there are no set procedures for removing reports from the suspicious-activity records (SARs) database holding the Cohen financial records. (The New Yorker, May 16, 2018, by Ronan Farrow)
SARs contain bank reports of suspicious activity including money laundering and fraud. Although these reports almost never go missing, it could be that highly sensitive records could have been transferred out perhaps at the request of someone like Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigating the Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. (Vanity Fair, May 17, 2018, by Abigail Tracy)