tl;dr
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has responded to accusations that the US government and over a dozen financial institutions collaborated to surveil Americans' private bank transactions. The House Judiciary Committee memo alleges that the Treasury Department's FinCEN urged banks to monitor custome...
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has responded to accusations that the US government and over a dozen financial institutions collaborated to surveil Americans' private bank transactions. The House Judiciary Committee memo alleges that the Treasury Department's FinCEN urged banks to monitor customers' transactions and flag keywords related to the January 6th Capitol Hill riot without legal process. Yellen confirmed that communications took place and financial institutions suggested search terms to identify potential riot perpetrators. The searches allegedly occurred after the riots but before President Biden's inauguration.
Ohio Republican and Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan expressed concern over the searches being conducted without warrants or pending charges. Thirteen financial institutions, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo, assisted in the search.
In new testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee, Secretary Yellen has answered a direct question on whether FinCEN emailed search term suggestions like “MAGA” and “Trump” to financial institutions. “I am now aware that there were communications that took place. In some cases, I believe financial institutions suggested to this group search terms they had used that had been helpful in identifying potential perpetrators of January 6th… It’s a way of trying to narrow the scope of search for individuals who, based on other information available to the financial institutions, may have been guilty of illegal behavior.”
Ohio Republican and Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan tells the Daily Mail that the searches were conducted without any warrants or pending charges against specific individuals. “Through our work at the Weaponization Committee, we have uncovered that financial institutions are sending Americans’ information directly to the FBI, without a warrant. The FBI and FinCEN are using banks to engage in fishing expeditions without any link to criminal conduct. This should worry everyone, no matter the party, and Secretary Yellen should disavow this practice.”
According to the Daily Mail, a total of 13 financial institutions assisted the Treasury with the search, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, Citibank, Truist, Charles Schwab, HSBC, MUFG, PayPal, Santander, Standard Chartered, and Western Union.
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