Arizona election denier boasts about potentially illegal access to U.S. banking data

A new report revealed that a former Arizona Republican secretary of state candidate is boasting about having obtained private banking information that the government tracks as part of criminal investigations.

Investigative reporter Phil Williams at WTVF Channel 5 Nashville reported that 2020 election denier Mark Finchem, who unsuccessfully ran to be Arizona's chief elections administrator two years ago, revealed on a recent podcast appearance that he was coordinating with Millersville Assistant Police Chief Shawn Taylor, a MAGA devotee who's been linked to several public mistakes while conducting his work.

Millersville is just south of Nashville and has fewer than 10,000 residents.

Specifically, Finchem claims to have gained access to FinCen, also known as the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which the U.S. Department of Treasury uses to track private financial transactions to help law enforcement in money laundering investigations.

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Williams said that any public disclosure of the data from FinCen "is a federal crime."

The FinCen website states: "The unauthorized disclosure of Suspicious Activity Reports is not only a violation of federal criminal law, but it undermines the very purpose for which the suspicious activity reporting system was created - the protection of our financial system through the prevention, detection, and prosecution of financial crimes and terrorist financing. The unauthorized disclosure of Suspicious Activity Reports can compromise the national security of the United States as well as threaten the safety and security of those institutions and individuals who file such reports."

Disclosing private banking information publicly can generate a huge identity theft problem for individuals and corporations.

Finchem then promised he'd reveal the data he obtained through Taylor "when we are ready."

“It's going to get really uncomfortable for some people because we already have the receipts — that's right, we already have the receipts,” Finchem threatened.

"It's a private-sector racketeering investigation basically that we've been engaged in now for, like I say, about two years," Finchem said.

The two men were looking into why some candidates lost political races that they thought they "should have won."

For example, “races that just didn't seem to make sense when you look at polling that is one way and suddenly somebody wins by a half a point the other direction," he said.

Read the full report here.