Chairman Jim Jordan of the House Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government has issued a subpoena to Bank of America (BoA).
The subpoena follows a series of communications between the congressional committee and the financial institution, with the committee demanding transparency over BoA’s data-sharing practices.
On Thursday, Jordan addressed a stern letter to BoA CEO Brian Moynihan, expressing the committee’s concerns and the inadequate response from the bank.
Documents from 2021 reveal that BoA voluntarily provided the FBI with details of individuals who transacted in the Washington, D.C., area from January 5-7, 2021. This action was taken without any legal mandate, prompting the committee’s inquiry into whether the bank collaborated with the FBI to collect data on American citizens outside of legal boundaries.
In 2021, The Gateway Pundit reported that Bank of America searched through customers’ data and transaction records and provided these data to the FBI following the Capitol riot.
The country’s second-largest bank gave data and information to the feds at the request of the US government, without the knowledge or consent of the customers.
Bank of America scanned through customer records to flag the following:
- Were they in DC between January 5 and January 6
- Purchased a hotel stay or AirBnB in DC, Virginia, or Maryland after January 6
- Airline-related purchases since January 6
- Any purchase of weapons between January 7 and their upcoming suspected stay in the DC area around Inauguration Day
BoA’s response to the committee claimed that their actions were part of a legal process initiated by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
However, the committee contends that the FBI, not the Treasury, initiated the contact without a legal framework, raising serious concerns over the legality of the bank’s cooperation with federal law enforcement.
The subpoena is part of a broader investigation into whether current laws, such as the Anti-Money Laundering Act and the Bank Secrecy Act, are being misapplied to justify unauthorized data sharing.
The committee is examining the full extent of BoA’s information exchange with the FBI to understand the impact on civil liberties and inform potential legislative reforms.
Jim Jordan released the following statement on Friday:
Yesterday, the Weaponization Committee subpoenaed Bank of America for sharing private financial data of customers with the FBI.
In 2021, BoA provided the FBI—voluntarily and without any legal process—with a list of individuals who made transactions in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area using a BoA credit or debit card between January 5 and January 7, 2021.
When that information was brought to the attention of Steven Jensen, the FBI’s then-Section Chief of the Domestic Terrorism Operations Section, he acted to “pull” the BoA information from FBI systems because “the leads lacked allegations of federal criminal conduct.”
Documents obtained by the Committee show that the FBI also provided BoA with specific search query terms, indicating that the FBI was “interested in all financial relationships” of BoA customers transacting in Washington D.C. and that had made “ANY historical purchase” of a firearm, or those who had purchased a hotel, Airbnb, or airline travel within a given date range.
This is a huge privacy concern.
Read the subpoena cover letter to Bank of America here.
#BREAKING: @Jim_Jordan Subpoenas Bank of America for Information on Sharing Customers’ Private Financial Data with the FBI pic.twitter.com/MbBUSoukYD
— Weaponization Committee (@Weaponization) November 16, 2023
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