Two Republican members of Congress announced Monday that they were broadening a House inquiry into collusion between large banks and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan and Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie have authored letters to Citigroup, JPMorgan, PNC Financial Services, Truist, U.S. Bankcorp and Wells Fargo with the intention of discerning the transfer of private information to the FBI. In the letters, the authors wrote that “following the events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, Bank of America (BoA) provided the FBI—voluntarily and without any legal process—with a list of individuals who had made transactions in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area with a BoA credit or debit card between January 5 and January 7, 2021.”
The authors then asked the banks whether they had entered into similar arrangements with the bureau. (RELATED: Biden Justice Department Is Going After Donations To Jan. 6 Rioters)
According to FBI whistleblowers, Bank of America shared private financial information of its customers (such as who had made purchases at gun stores) with the FBI, without a warrant or legal process. @Jim_Jordan and I are now demanding to know if other banks are doing the same. https://t.co/i3TQrfkGPP
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) June 12, 2023
The letters cited retired FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst George Hill, who testified that Bank of America had “data-mined its customer base” to create a list for the FBI and that “on top of that list, they put anyone who had purchased a firearm during any date.”
Jordan and Massie wrote that they find Hill’s testimony “alarming,” particularly because the information was given as a data dump instead of targeting specific individuals. Due to the dump, the FBI received financial information for private individuals who were uninvolved in the riot without ever obtaining a warrant, per the letters.
“Congress has an important interest in ensuring that Americans’ private information is protected from collection by federal law enforcement agencies without proper due process” the congressmen wrote, calling for the bank executives to release all documents and communications between their institutions and the FBI. (RELATED: Canadian Judge Rules Trudeau Was Justified In Invoking Emergencies Act Against ‘Freedom Convoy’)
“The Committee and Select Subcommittee must understand if, how, and to what extent financial institutions, including JPMorgan Chase, worked with the FBI to collect Americans’ private data,” the letters read. The letters request that the recipients provide the Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government with all requested documents no later than 5:00 p.m. on June 26.