House Judiciary Committee Investigating Bank of America For Disclosing Customer Info to FBI

washingtontimes.com

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Bank of America is under fire for its role in providing its customers’ private financial information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). 

The House Judiciary Committee launched an investigation into the matter. Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust Chairman Thomas Massie (R-KY) penned a letter to bank CEO Brian Moynihan.

The two Republican lawmakers demanded all communications between the bank, the FBI, and the DOJ related to the “data dump.” 

“An FBI whistleblower has disclosed that shortly after 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 letter said.

“We require your cooperation in investigating these facts,” Jordan and Massie wrote in their letter. The letter requested that the bank turn over the records by June 8. 

The investigation was prompted by the testimony of an FBI whistleblower who said that Bank of America turned over customer information without a directive from the FBI. 

The committee also learned that Bank of America customers who had purchased guns using a BoA credit or debit card went to the top of the list “regardless of when or where” the firearms were purchased. 

“This testimony is alarming,” Jordan and Massie wrote. “According to veteran FBI employees, [Bank of America] provided, without any legal process, private financial information of Americans to the most powerful law enforcement entity in the country.”

“This information appears to have had no individualized nexus to particularized criminal conduct, but was rather a data dump of [Bank of America] customers’ transactions over a three-day period,” they wrote. 

“This information undoubtedly included private details about [Bank of America] customers who had nothing at all to do with the events of January 6.”

“Even worse, BoA specifically provided information about Americans who exercised their Second Amendment right to purchase a firearm.”

Did Bank of America act on their own in providing this information or did the FBI request it? Either way, it’s a lose-lose situation for their customers and America. 

Without privacy, there is no freedom. 

“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 Committee and Select Subcommittee must understand how and to what extent financial institutions, such as BoA, worked with the FBI to collect Americans’ data,” Jordan and Massie reminded the bank in the letter.