February 25, 2025

Notes on the Crises Investigative Journalism Source Wish List.

Sources can contact me over email or over signal (a secure and encrypted text messaging app) — linked here. My Signal username is “NathanTankus.01”. I will speak to sources on whatever terms they require (i.e. off the record, Deep Background, on Background etc.)

February 25th 2025: 

It has begun to feel preposterous to append in italics at the front of every article all the sources I want. My list keeps on growing and growing, making the newsletter less and less readable. As a result, I’ve decided to create a separate page where all of the different sources I want are listed so that I can simply link to it in every article, only including my “top two asks” that day in italics at the top.

  1. Current or former career Internal Revenue Service COBOL programmer
  2. Current or Former Bureau of the Fiscal Service Employee COBOL programmer
  3. Current or Former Bureau of the Fiscal Service employees in the Budget Appropriations and Analysis Section (BAAS)
  4. Current or former career Internal Revenue Service employee
  5. Contractors at either Bureau of the Fiscal Service or  Internal Revenue Service
  6. Legal counsel sources from the Treasury, Federal Reserve Board or Federal Reserve Banks
  7. Payments Department employees in the Federal Reserve System
  8. Treasury/Liquidity Department at a Major or Regional Bank
  9.  Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) Employee
  10. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) Employee
  11. National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA) employee with knowledge of NACHA’s rules and legal standards
  12. Any Administrative Agency employee with knowledge of the Bureau of the Fiscal Service directly stopping payments your agency has authorized
  13. Washington DC Commercial Real Estate companies with a large quantity of Federal Government office leases
  14. Any former or current Federal Government Employee with knowledge of the “Black Budget” and specifically knowledge of how the Black Budget is processed by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service
  15. Any source who has direct knowledge of Elon Musk’s, Donald Trump’s or Treasury Secretary Bessent’s thinking regarding the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the Treasury payments crisis or operationally organizing impoundment (also any high level government agency or White House figure)