The fallout from the Biden administration's serial malfeasance isn't done dropping yet.
On Friday, Republicans from the House Judiciary Committee sent a memo to FBI Director Kash Patel, alleging that the Justice Department under Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland and, specifically, the Biden-era FBI, collaborated with financial institutions to gather information on Americans' private financial transactions.
🚨NEW: The Biden-Harris FBI worked with financial institutions to spy on Americans' private financial records.@Jim_Jordan, @Congressman_JVD, and @RepLoudermilk are getting to the bottom of it.
— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) March 21, 2025
Read here: https://t.co/WR33rsA37f pic.twitter.com/0O9SBr2YAN
The memo states in part:
Dear Director Patel:
Under the leadership of former Director Christopher Wray, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) deputized financial institutions to act as arms of federal law enforcement in an effort to surveil Americans engaged in constitutionally protected activity. During the 118th Congress, the Committee on the Judiciary conducted oversight of this abuse of power, issuing multiple subpoenas to financial institutions, conducting transcribed interviews, holding a hearing, and releasing two reports.1 As we continue our oversight of these abuses in the 119th Congress, we write to request documents and information about the FBI’s requests for and use of financial data from financial institutions.
Following the events of January 6, 2021, a whistleblower disclosed to the Committee how Bank of America (BoA), voluntarily and without legal process, provided the FBI with a list of names of all individuals who used a BoA credit or debit card in the Washington, D.C. region around that time.2 After other FBI officials corroborated these allegations, the Committee and Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government requested documents from BoA and six other financial institutions about federal law enforcement’s receipt of financial data.
In simple English, the FBI under Christopher Wray was spying on the personal financial transactions of Americans and solicited the collaboration of some American financial institutions to do so. The motivations for the financial institutions, like Bank of America, for handing this information over, are not known.
There's more:
We obtained documents that revealed that following the events of January 6, 2021, federal law enforcement, including the FBI, initiated multiple discussions with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and some of the largest financial institutions in the United States.4 Following these discussions, federal law enforcement and FinCEN shared various nonpublic documents and information with financial institutions. The FBI shared one intelligence product, titled, “Domestic Violence Extremists Likely Emboldened in Aftermath of Capitol Breach,” prepared by the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), with financial institutions to alert them to individuals that may fit the profile of criminal and domestic violent extremists.5 Another document showed how financial institutions should filter Zelle payments using keywords like “MAGA” and “TRUMP” and that “the purchase of books (including religious texts) and subscriptions to other media containing extremist views” could be evidence of “Homegrown Violent Extremism.”6 Our first interim report detailed how federal law enforcement derisively viewed Americans, targeting those who expressed opposition to issues such as open border policies, COVID-19 lockdowns, firearm regulations, and vaccine mandates as potential domestic terrorists.
The FBI, under Christopher Wray, and the Department of Justice, under Attorney General Merrick Garland, appear to have conspired to weaponize the capacity to carry out financial surveillance, and they did so for political purposes.
Think about that for a moment. A search for keywords like "MAGA" and "TRUMP" is one thing, but if they can surveil transactions for that, they can surveil for other things, like, say, firearms purchases. There are a host of constitutional problems with this, and hopefully, the House Judiciary will get to the bottom of it.
Will we see any arrests and prosecutions? That remains to be seen. Historically, the rates of actual arrests and prosecutions in matters of this sort have been, let's say, underwhelming.
You can view the entire House Judiciary memo here.
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