AMAC Exclusive – By Neil Banerji
According to a new bombshell report from Fox News, just shopping at popular sporting goods stores or buying a “MAGA” hat is now enough to get you on a government watch list.
On January 17, Fox reported that, following the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, “Federal investigators asked banks to search and filter customer transactions by using terms like ‘MAGA’ and ‘Trump.’”
In addition, the Treasury Department’s Office of Stakeholder Integration and Engagement in the Strategic Operations of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, told financial institutions that purchasing “religious texts” – like the Bible – could be an indicator of “extremist” activity. If true, such discriminatory actions by the federal government would constitute an apparently blatant violation of the First Amendment’s protection of religious liberty.
But they didn’t stop there. FinCEN officials also allegedly “suggested that banks query transactions with keywords like Dick’s Sporting Goods, Cabela’s, Bass Pro Shops and more” – three of the nation’s largest suppliers of firearms and firearms accessories. The move is another obvious attempt by the Biden administration to target Americans for exercising their Second Amendment rights.
In a follow-up story published on January 18, Fox reported that sources familiar with FinCEN’s activities also told banks to search for numerous other terms, including “White Power,” “Storm, the,” “Capitol,” “civil war,” “last sons,” “kill,” “shoot,” “gun,” “death,” “murder,” “Biden,” “Kamala,” “Pelosi,” and “Schumer.”
The revelations came following a documents request from the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which is chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH). Jordan and the subcommittee are now requesting that Noah Bishoff, a career Treasury Department employee and the former Director of FinCEN, appear for a transcribed interview on the matter, saying he may “possess information necessary for our oversight.”
According to Fox, “Jordan said the committee obtained documents showing that FinCEN distributed slides, prepared by Key Bank, to other banks to explain how they could use merchant category codes (MCC) to detect customers whose transactions may reflect ‘potential active shooters, and who may include dangerous International Terrorists/ Domestic Terrorists/ Homegrown Violence Extremists (‘Lone Wolves’).’”
One slide reportedly tells banks to monitor accounts of individuals whose transactions include terms like “small arms” (referring to pistols often used for self defense) and “sporting and recreational goods and supplies.”
“Despite these transactions having no apparent criminal nexus — and, in fact, relate to Americans exercising their Second Amendment rights — FinCEN seems to have adopted a characterization of these Americans as potential threat actors,” Jordan wrote in a letter to Bishoff. “This kind of pervasive financial surveillance, carried out in coordination with and at the request of federal law enforcement, into Americans’ private transactions is alarming and raises serious doubts about FinCEN’s respect for fundamental liberties.”
Senate Republicans have also gotten in on the action, with Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) also penning a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and new FinCEN Director Andrea Gacki demanding more transparency about the agency’s communications with credit card banks.
“I write regarding recent reporting that the U.S. Treasury Department (Treasury) through its Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) urged private financial institutions to surveil customers’ transaction-level data using politically charged search terms, in order to flag certain customer profiles on behalf of Federal law enforcement,” Scott wrote. “These allegations, if true, represent a flagrant violation of Americans’ privacy and the improper targeting of U.S. citizens for exercising their constitutional rights without due process.”
This bombshell is just the latest instance of the House Weaponization Subcommittee exposing instances of federal officials abusing their power to target conservatives. The subcommittee has also made public a widely-shared FBI field office memo labeling Catholics as a “violent extremist threat,” held hearings on collusion between the government and Big Tech companies to censor conservatives online, and launched inquiries into the politically motivated prosecutions of former President Donald Trump, among other important investigations.
As the 2024 election draws closer, the subcommittee will become an even more vital tool to draw a clear contrast between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to the two parties’ respective commitment (or lack thereof) to protecting individual liberties.
The subcommittee’s work will be particularly important for Trump, now the prohibitive favorite to be the Republican nominee for president. Trump has made combatting the Deep State a major theme of his 2024 campaign, and each piece of evidence from the subcommittee exposing the abuses of career bureaucrats has lent more credence to Trump’s claims.
While the subcommittee itself may not have any real legislative power, the information it has unveiled has already provided Trump and other Republicans with plenty of ammunition in the ongoing battle of public opinion.
Neil Banerji is a proud Las Vegas resident and former student at the University of Oxford. In his spare time, he enjoys reading Winston Churchill and Edmund Burke.
