OREANDA-NEWS. A court in the United States has sentenced former employee of the US Treasury Department Natalie Mayflower Saurs-Edwards to six months in prison for transmitting confidential information to the media, including about the Russian Embassy in Washington. This was announced on Thursday, June 3, by the US Department of Justice.

The report indicates that among the data disclosed by the former senior adviser in the Office for the implementation of legislation in the field of financial crimes at the Ministry of Finance Saurs-Edwards in 2017-2018, there were, in particular, information about the Russian Embassy in the United States, Russian citizen Maria Butina, former head of the campaign headquarters of former US President Donald Trump Paul Manafort, as well as about the company Alexander Prevezon.

According to the Ministry of Justice, during the year up to the arrest in October 2018, Saurs-Edwards handed over to one journalist, designated in the message as Reporter-1, confidential photo and text materials of Suspicious Activity Reports (SAR), which were published in at least 12 articles.

In addition to the prison term, the court ordered 43-year-old Saurs-Edwards to be restricted under police supervision for three years.
Russian Maria Butina, who was in the United States on a tourist visa, was detained in July 2018 on charges of conspiracy to work as an unregistered foreign agent. On April 26, 2019, the court sentenced her to 18 months in prison, taking into account the almost nine months she spent in custody awaiting sentencing.

In December 2018, Butina made a deal with the investigation and admitted that she participated in a conspiracy against the United States, acted as an unregistered agent of the Russian government and tried to gain the trust of the leaders of the National Rifle Association. In particular, Butina said that she colluded with Erickson to promote Russia's interests under the influence of former deputy chairman of the Central Bank Alexander Torshin.

In October 2019, Butina, released from prison, returned to Russia.