Feds Had Banks Flag Americans’ Gun Records and Bible Buys

(StraightNews.org) – The Treasury Department, via law enforcement agencies, snooped on American purchases for signs of “extremism” after January 6. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan wrote to the former Director of the Treasury Department’s Office of Stakeholder Integration and Engagement in the Strategic Operations Division of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) Noah Bishoff, asking him to appear for a transcribed interview with lawmakers.

Jordan wrote that Bishoff’s department asked financial institutions to search for records of purchases using search terms including “Trump” and “MAGA.” Additionally, the letter claims that FinCEN requested that banks search for purchases of religious texts and “bus tickets, rental cars, or plane tickets for travel to areas with no apparent purpose.”

The probe is part of Rep. Jordan’s investigation into the “weaponization” of federal bodies to persecute conservatives and pro-Trump campaigners. The Republican directly accused FinCEN of combing through private transactions “for suspicious charges on the basis of protected political and religious expression.” He added that searching for gun purchases as signs of extremism amounts to an infringement on the Second Amendment rights of Americans.

The House Weaponization Committee began in February 2023, when Republicans took control of the House. It comprises lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle and has the power to investigate and subpoena officials from federal bodies, including the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the IRS.

In his opening remarks at the first committee hearing, Mr. Jordan said that multiple government agencies, often in cahoots with big tech companies, were suppressing information and censoring Americans. Democrat Stacey Plaskett, who sits on the committee, responded to Jordan, saying the body should not devolve into score-settling or “showcase conspiracy theories and advance an extreme agenda that risks undermining Americans’ faith in our democracy.”

In its second hearing, the committee heard from Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger, who testified that Twitter was pressured to censor stories about the Hunter Biden laptop scandal in the run-up to the 2020 Presidential election.