Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is facing an elaborate program that allowed the FBI to spy on thousands of Americans through banking transactions
Republicans in the House of Representatives can put pressure on Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen on Tuesday about her agency’s efforts to monitor Americans’ banking transactions after the Jan. 6 riot.
The Treasury Department boss is expected to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee about President Joe Biden’s tax policies, but some in the Republican Party say the opportunity should be used to elicit information on other matters.
In February, Yellen testified before lawmakers and sidestepped their questions about the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) efforts to have U.S. financial institutions send federal officials personal customer data.
She then told lawmakers, “I promise I will thoroughly investigate everything.”
Now Republicans want answers from Yellen after she has had months to investigate the secret surveillance program.
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.
“Through our work at the Weaponization Committee, we have discovered that financial institutions are sending U.S. information directly to the FBI, without warrants,” Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told DailyMail.com.
“The FBI and FinCEN use banks to participate in fishing expeditions without any connection to criminal behavior.”
“This should concern everyone, regardless of party, and Secretary Yellen should reject this practice,” Jordan continued.
The House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, led by Jordan, is investigating the “collusion” between U.S. banks and federal agencies in the aftermath of the Capitol riot.
According to shocking committee reports, the Biden administration worked with banks to search indicators of “extremism,” such as the purchase of religious texts, such as a Bible, or searches using the terms “MAGA” and “TRUMP.”
Last week, DailyMail.com was the first to reveal that at least thirteen financial institutions are being investigated by Republicans in Congress for colluding with the federal government to spy on Americans following the January 6 protests for “extremism” indicators.
Bank of America, Chase, US Bank, Wells Fargo, Citi Bank, Truist, Charles Schwab, HSBC, MUFG, PayPal, Santander, Standard Chartered and Western Union All research is being done into links with one FBI and FinCEN are plotting a scheme to spy on Americans’ private banking transactions without first obtaining a warrant.
U.S. Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen told lawmakers in February that she doesn’t know much about the surveillance briefs distributed by FinCEN after Jan. 6.
“This type of unauthorized financial surveillance raises serious concerns about the federal government’s respect for Americans’ privacy and fundamental civil liberties,” Jordan wrote in a letter to Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen, obtained last week via DailyMail.com.
According to investigators, FinCEN and the FBI received data on 211 individuals from Bank of America in a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) on January 17, 2021:
But the SAR was sent only after the FBI and FinCEN deliberately asked U.S. 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 have identified financial institution “thresholds” for which a SAR should be raised.
On April 9, he took part in a transcribed interview with the Armaments Committee.
According to the ‘threshold’ established by the FBI and FinCEN, Bank of America then sent the data of the 211 people.
“Given this coordination, the Committee and the Select Subcommittee are concerned that the Federal Government, through the FBI and FinCEN, has sent similar or identical thresholds to other financial institutions that have manipulated the SAR registration process to obtain, without charge, the information and transaction history of individuals to find out. of federal criminal conduct,” the letter to Yellen said.
When pressed about the Treasury Department’s FinCEN materials distributed to major financial institutions during a February Congressional hearing, Yellen dodges lawmakers’ questions, responding once, “I promise to do everything will investigate thoroughly.’
After Bank of America sent the list of 211 customers whose transactions met federal “thresholds,” Sullivan requested additional transaction history.
He asked Bank of America to forward any “gun-related transactions.”
Four of Bank of America’s original 211 customers were eligible.
This led to ‘criminal background questions’ for the four customers.
Later, four federal agents were deployed to three FBI field offices to investigate these individuals.
After the investigations were completed, the FBI uploaded their findings to a portal and sent “a number of leads” to even more people of interest.
But according to Steve Jensen, then section chief of the FBI’s domestic terrorism operations selector, the leads were dropped because there were “no allegations of federal criminal conduct.”
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.
Bank of America sent customers’ private financial information to federal officials to help them investigate crimes related to the January 6, 2021 Capitol protest
This means that even though these individuals met the “thresholds” set by the FBI and FinCEN, they were not actually investigated for an alleged crime.
“Given this coordination, the Committee and the Select Subcommittee are concerned that the Federal Government, through the FBI and FinCEN, has sent similar or identical thresholds to other financial institutions that have manipulated the SAR registration process to obtain, without charge, the information and transaction history of individuals to find out. of federal criminal conduct,” the letter to Yellen continued.
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 addition, officials also warned banks about “extremism” indicators such as the purchase of a religious text, such as a Bible, or searches using the terms “MAGA” and “TRUMP.”
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.
An interface shared between more than 650 companies and federal officials contains a “secret portal” containing sensitive data on American citizens, the Ohio Republican warned during a March 6 hearing.
Jordan has said conservatives and Christians were targeted by FinCEN’s surveillance
“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.”