Government watchdog Judicial Watch is in court seeking communications between the FBI and various banking institutions that apparently have been reporting their customers to the law-enforcement agency.
Judicial Watch said it filed a response to the Department of Justice’s opposition to the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
The issue is what the banks told the FBI about the customers’ transactions around the Jan. 6 events in Washington, D.C.
Judicial Watch spokesman Tom Fitton said, “This Judicial Watch lawsuit shows how the FBI is corruptly trying to hide that it used the January 6 incident as an excuse to conduct unlawful surveillance of the American people’s bank transactions.”
Its legal action seeks records of communications between the FBI and Bank of America, Citibank, Chase Manhattan Bank, Discover, American Express and more.
The DOJ has opposed the request and most recently, “despite previously admitting to the existence of these records, refused to ‘confirm or deny the existence of records’ about this surveillance of American citizens,” the Judicial Watch reported.
“In this case, the FBI appears to have conducted an improper, broad sweep of financial records, not just those of persons it had reason to believe were involved in the events of January 6, but many more Americans. Detailed media reports not only indicate that the FBI sought financial records, but also set forth in detail the specific criteria and scope of the records obtained,” the group reported.
It cited how Bank of America apparently “actively but secretly engaged in the hunt for extremists in cooperation with the government” and, following the events of January 6, gave the FBI financial records of their customers.
Those included customers who were involved in transactions in Washington at that time, made purchases for hotel and transportation there, and more.
It was Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson who in a column some months ago pointed out the left’s agenda to characterize conservatives and Christians as terrorists.
“We’re hearing those words nonstop, not just on cable news, but from elected officials, including some Republicans. We’re hearing it from the leaders of federal law enforcement agencies and the intelligence agencies. We’re hearing it from the Pentagon. Just this week, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered the entire U.S. military to ‘stand down’ while investigators cleanse the ranks of political extremists,” he wrote at the time.
And from businesses.
He reported then that he’d obtained “evidence that Bank of America, the second-largest bank in the country with more than 60 million customers, is actively but secretly engaged in the hunt for extremists in cooperation with the government. Bank of America is, without the knowledge or the consent of its customers, sharing private information with federal law enforcement agencies. Bank of America effectively is acting as an intelligence agency, but they’re not telling you about it.”
He said the evidence shows after the Jan. 6 events, “Bank of America went through its own customers’ financial and transaction records. These were the private records of Americans who had committed no crime; people who, as far as we know, had absolutely nothing to do with what happened at the Capitol. But at the request of federal investigators, Bank of America searched its databases looking for people who fit a specific profile.”
Eventually the bank “identified a total of 211 customers who met these ‘thresholds of interest.’ At that point, ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ has learned, Bank of America turned over the results of its internal scan to federal authorities, apparently without notifying the customers who were being spied upon. Federal investigators then interviewed at least one of these unsuspecting people. That person, we’ve learned, hadn’t done anything wrong and was cleared.”
He charged, “Imagine if you were that person. The FBI hauls you in for questioning in a terror investigation, not because you’ve done anything suspicious, but because you bought plane tickets and visited your country’s capital. Now they’re sweating you because your bank, which you trust with your most private information, has ratted you out without your knowledge. Because Bank of America did that, you are being treated like a member of al Qaida.”
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