The Biden administration has gotten banks to “spy” on Americans’ daily purchases and money transfers, conducting millions of searches without obtaining a warrant typically required for such snooping, a stunning new report from Congress finds.
The House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government just released its damning findings, which the panel says focus heavily on the surveillance of Americans inclined to support newly elected President Donald Trump.
“The federal government is spying on your bank account,” the Republican-led panel posted in a video on X summarizing the 47-page report.
“The federal government has conditioned financial institutions to work for them,” reads another alarming slide in the video.
What the video tries to explain is the complex and convoluted process in which major financial companies, such as Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Chase and more, have all turned over their customers’ data to the government for free.
“The next time you swipe your (debit or credit card) card, know that someone might be watching,” the subcommittee video eerily adds.
This data can include the location, date and description of transactions, making it easy for the government to gain insight into where people go, what they buy and what activities they spend their time on.
After receiving this data, the FBI created an internal portal where employees could search these typically private transactions and then create profiles of individual citizens of concern, such as those who shopped at Cabela’s or bought a Bible, the panel alleges.
More than 14,000 federal employees had access to that sensitive financial data in 2023, with 3.3 million “legitimate searches” conducted, according to the subcommittee.
Weaponization Chairman Jim Jordan has said conservatives and Christians were targeted for surveillance in the aftermath of January 6
Bank of America sent customers’ private financial information to federal officials to help them investigate crimes related to the January 6, 2021 Capitol protest. The bank cooperated and forwarded data that was later used to create profiles about Americans, the committee claims
The report highlights the granular details of how the commission was able to uncover such federal monitoring.
The panel’s chairman, Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, was first made aware of this financial surveillance in 2023 when an FBI whistleblower alerted them to how the FBI was using their influence to force banks to give up access to the private transaction data to be transferred after the January 6 storming of the Capitol.
Retired FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst George Hill told the committee “that following the events of January 6, 2021, Bank of America, voluntarily and without legal process, provided the Federal Bureau of Investigation with a list of names of all individuals receiving BoA credit have used. or debit card in the Washington, DC area around that time.”
But it wasn’t just Bank of America.
At least 13 financial institutions were investigated by the Republican-controlled panel for conspiring with the federal government to spy on Americans after the Jan. 6 riot.
The banks and the FBI justified such questions by claiming they were looking for purchases that could identify someone as an extremist.
The Biden administration worked with banks to search indicators of “extremism,” such as the purchase of a religious text such as a Bible, or searches using the terms “MAGA” and “TRUMP,” according to shocking revelations from the committee.
Bank of America, Chase, US Bank, Wells Fargo, Citi Bank and Truist were all examined in the study to expose how the The U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the The FBI cooperated.
Charles Schwab, HSBC, MUFG, PayPal, Santander, Standard Chartered and Western Union were all also investigated.
The House Judiciary Committee revealed in January that U.S. Treasury Department officials distributed a memo around Jan. 6, 2021, instructing financial institutions on how to spot indicators of extremism, such as purchasing trips to Washington, D.C., or religious texts.
According to investigators, on January 17, 2021, FinCEN and the FBI received data on 211 individuals from Bank of America in a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR).
But the SAR was sent only after the FBI and FinCEN – the FBI – asked US banks to search customer transactions for key terms like “MAGA” and “Trump” to identify “extremism” in a memo distributed in the aftermath of January 6 .
According to Peter Sullivan, the FBI’s former financial sector liaison, federal agencies determined financial institution “thresholds” for which a SAR should be raised.
Following the “threshold” set by the FBI and FinCEN, Bank of America then sent them the data of the 211 individuals.
Jordan and the panel were concerned that the practice was widespread, with federal employees pushing many banks to freely transfer private data.
When the Treasury Department’s FinCEN material was pressed during a congressional hearing in February, it circulated among major financial institutions. Janet Yellen dodged lawmakers’ questions, responding once, “I promise I will thoroughly investigate everything.”
Federal agencies have given financial institutions “thresholds” at which a SAR would have to be raised, said Peter Sullivan, the FBI’s former financial sector liaison.
The committee also obtained documents showing that officials suggested that banks requesting purchases with keywords such as “Dick’s Sporting Goods” could be signs of extremism.
In the aftermath of January 6, FinCEN even suggested that banks review transactions at sporting and recreational goods stores such as Cabela’s, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Bass Pro Shops to identify customers who might be “extremists.”
In March, Jordan sent letters to GoFundMe and Eventbrite asking them to cooperate with the commission’s ongoing investigation.
Republicans in the House of Representatives say the federal government has urged crowdfunding platforms to “comb” their personal transactions and “report charges based on protected political and religious speech.”
The federal government has also created “profiles” of the American people, kept in a “secret portal” shared with companies to identify the level of extremism of customers, Jordan said.
That interface is shared among more than 650 companies and federal officials, Jordan claims.
“The federal government is building profiles of the American people. And the profile is not based on criminal behavior, it is based on political beliefs,” Jordan said at the time.
“And if you have the wrong political beliefs, you are potentially a domestic violent extremist.”