[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] - House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen
- Americans had their private financial data shared after January 6
- DailyMail.com reveals seven new financial institutions under investigation
At least 13 financial institutions are being investigated by Republicans in Congress for colluding with the federal government to spy on Americans after the January 6 protests looking for 'extremism' indicators.
The House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government led by top Republican Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is investigating 'collusion' between U.S. banks and federal agencies in the aftermath of the Capitol riot.
The Biden administration worked with banks to comb through 'extremism' indicators like the purchase of a religious text, like a Bible, or searches including the terms 'MAGA' and 'TRUMP,' according to shocking revelations by the committee.
Bank of America, Chase, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, Citi Bank and Truist were already being targeted in the probe looking to expose how the U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the FBI worked together.
Now, DailyMail.com can first reveal that seven other financial firms are also under investigation for ties to an FBI and FinCEN plot to spy on Americans' private banking transactions without first obtaining a warrant.
| It’s that the institutions rolled over without a warrant that’ll get them in trouble. |
'The Committee and Select Subcommittee remain concerned about how and to what extent federal law enforcement and financial institutions continue to spy on Americans by weaponizing backdoor information sharing and casting sprawling classes of transactions, purchase behavior, and protected political or religious expression as potentially 'suspicious' or indicative of 'extremism,'' the letters to the institutions said.
'Documents obtained by the Committee and Select Subcommittee show that the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) circulated concerning materials,' to each of the seven additional firms Jordan wrote.
Charles Schwab, MUFG, PayPal, Santander, Standard Chartered and Western Union did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
HSBC declined DailyMail.com's request for comment.
'This kind of warrantless financial surveillance raises serious concerns about the federal government's respect for Americans' privacy and fundamental civil liberties,' Jordan wrote in a separate letter to Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen, also obtained by DailyMail.com.
According to investigators, FinCEN and the FBI received data on 211 individuals from the Bank of America in a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) on January 17, 2021.
But the SAR was only sent after the FBI and FinCEN asked U.S. banks to scour customer transactions for key terms like 'MAGA' and 'Trump' to identify 'extremism' in a memo distributed in the aftermath of January 6.
The federal agencies provided the financial institutions 'thresholds' for which an SAR should be raise, according to Peter Sullivan, the FBI's former financial sector liaison.
He sat for a transcribed interview with the weaponization committee on April 9.
According to the 'threshold' set by the FBI and FinCEN, Bank of America then sent the data of the 211 individuals.
'Given this coordination, the Committee and Select Subcommittee are concerned that the federal government, through the FBI and FinCEN, sent similar or identical thresholds to other financial institutions that manipulated the SAR filing process to elicit the information and transaction history of individuals without any allegation of federal criminal conduct,' the letter to Yellen said.
When pressed on the Treasury's FinCEN materials circulated to top financial institutions during a February Congressional hearing, Yellen dodges lawmakers' questions, responding once 'I promise a thorough look into everything.'
After Bank of America sent over the list of 211 customers' whose transactions met the federal 'thresholds,' Sullivan requested additional transaction history.
He asked that Bank of America send over any 'weapons-related transactions.'
Four Bank of America customers out of the original 211 qualified.
This prompted 'criminal background queries' into the four customers.
Later, four federal agents were deployed to three FBI field offices to investigate those individuals.
After the investigations were complete, the FBI uploaded their findings to a portal and sent out 'a number of leads' on additional persons of interst.
But, according to the then-Section Chief of the FBI's Domestic Terrorism Operations Selection Steve Jensen, the leads were pulled because they 'lacked allegations of federal criminal conduct.'