House subcommittee exposes FBI’s alarming surveillance of Trump supporters ahead of 2024 election.
The federal government has flagged terms like “MAGA” and “Trump” for financial institutions if those terms were included in transactions, according to the House Judiciary Committee.
The Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government claimed Wednesday it had obtained documents proving the FBI was flagging these terms as well as “individuals who shopped at stores like Cabela’s or Dick’s Sporting Goods, or purchased religious texts like a bible, may also have had their transactions flagged.”
“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 concerns about the FBI’s respect for fundamental civil liberties,” the subcommittee stated in a press release.
We now know the federal government flagged terms like “MAGA” and “TRUMP,” to financial institutions if Americans completed transactions using those terms.
What was also flagged? If you bought a religious text, like a BIBLE, or shopped at Bass Pro Shop. pic.twitter.com/jjRaVNItWz
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) January 17, 2024
“In light of these revelations, Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) has requested transcribed interviews from Peter Sullivan, Senior Private Sector Partner for Outreach in the Strategic Partner Engagement Section of the FBI, and Noah Bishoff, former Director of the Office of Stakeholder Integration and Engagement in the Strategic Operations Division of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).”
In the letter to Bishoff, Jordan explained the documents obtained by the committee show that in the wake of January 6, 2021, FinCEN distributed materials to banks directing them to search for “extremism indicators” in transactions like “the purchase of books (including religious texts) and subscriptions to other media containing extremist views.”
“In other words, FinCEN urged large financial institutions to comb through the private transactions of their customers for suspicious charges on the basis of protected political and religious expression,” Jordan wrote.
Jordan also explained that the committee has evidence FinCEN presented slides to banks instructing them to flag firearm purchases at sporting supplies stores like Cabela’s and Dick’s Sporting Goods.
“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.
“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 civil liberties,” he added.
This comes after Newsweek reported in October that the FBI had created a new “extremism” category to track mainly Trump supporters ahead of the 2024 election.
Notably, the number of domestic extremism cases has dropped since Jan. 6, but journalist William Arkin told Newsweek that “sociopolitical developments—such as narratives of fraud in the recent general election, the emboldening impact of the violent breach of the U.S. Capitol, conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and conspiracy theories promoting violence—will almost certainly spur some domestic terrorists to try to engage in violence.”
Read Jordan’s letter to Bishoff: