The Federalist reported:

An FBI whistleblower told congressional investigators that the D.C. field office pushed local offices to open criminal investigations into Americans based solely on financial transactions Bank of America tracked and voluntarily provided to the bureau, according to testimony reviewed by The Federalist.

“Bank of America, with no directive from the FBI, datamined its customer base,” whistleblower and recently retired FBI supervisory intelligence analyst George Hill told investigators for the House Judiciary Committee, according to Hill’s testimony.

Hill is one of the dozens of former and current FBI agents who are spilling the beans on the problematic elements within the Bureau. The former agent testified that on either Jan. 6 or 8, 2021, Bank of America sent a “huge list” of individuals who used the company’s credit or debit cards in Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas in the days leading up to, and shortly after, the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol building. “Bank of America then elevated to the top of the list anyone who had ever (through Jan. 6, 2021) used a Bank of America product to purchase a firearm.”

Hill explained that there was a geographic or date-range limit to the searches for gun sales. This would mean that an individual would have been pushed to the top of the list if they had “purchased a shotgun in 1999” in Iowa, and then used a BofA credit card at a hotel on Jan. 5, 2021, in the D.C. area even if there were no evidence linking him to the incident at the Capitol.

The D.C. field office, the entity that oversaw the Jan. 6 investigation, sent Bank of America’s list to field offices across the nation, asking leadership to open investigations into the individuals listed. Hill explained that his supervisor at the Boston field office refrained from launching a probe into anyone on the list because there was “no predication” and “no crime that was committed” by using a Bank of America credit card in or around the District.”

The report notes that the D.C. office persisted in pressuring the Boston office to open investigations, even threatening to call the assistant special agent in charge. Unfortunately for the authoritarians in the D.C. field office, this official also refused. In one exchange, the Boston special agent in charge said “No, we’re not going to open up cases based on credit card or debit activity that took place.”

Well, at least there are still some FBI agents who have integrity. However, there is a disturbing reality undergirding this situation. Hill said “what I don’t know and could not give accurate testimony to” was whether the D.C. field office “took it upon themselves to open cases.”

Even more worrisome is that we do not know if any of the other FBI field offices acquiesced to the demands of D.C. Indeed, it does not seem like a stretch to speculate that at least some of them did open investigations into Americans without a shred of evidence linking them to any crimes.

This issue first came to light when Fox News host Tucker Carlson revealed evidence that Bank of America was giving private transaction records to the Bureau ostensibly to aid in investigations into “extremism” or domestic terrorism.

Carlson noted that the company singled out 211 people and gave their information to the FBI without even bothering to notify the customers that they are banking with an institution that views George Orwell’s “1984” as an instruction manual.

During an interview with the New York Post, Bernard Kerik, a security consultant who previously served with the NYPD, insisted that these gun purchases were “just not a good reason to hand over private information” and that if this is the way Bank of America handles these issues, “then the people of this country really have something to worry about.”

Kerik’s right.

It is already troubling enough that the FBI is investigating and looking into people based on such flimsy evidence. But the fact that Bank of America would betray its clientele to assist the government in engaging in blatant corruption shows just how perilous things have become in the United States from a liberty perspective. How can Americans enjoy liberty when corporate America is in cahoots with a government that is growing ever more tyrannical?

Hopefully, this will be yet another issue that House Republicans look into as part of the subcommittee on the “Weaponization” of the federal government. I do not have much faith in the party, but I can acknowledge that there are some in Congress who take the protection of our natural rights seriously – and it appears they have an abundance of material to work with in this situation alone.