Jordan subpoenas BofA for ‘sharing’ private Jan. 6-related customer data with FBI
Posted for: 🇺🇸 Kari ⭐️ ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) subpoenaed Bank of America over the institution’s sharing of the “sensitive customer information of potentially thousands of BoA customers” and implicating them “in a federal law enforcement investigation” related to the events of January 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol.
In a letter to BoA CEO Brian Moynihan dated November 16, Jordan accused the bank of failing to provide the Committee and Select Subcommittee with a “filing” it gave to the FBI.
“The Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government are conducting oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) receipt of information about American citizens from private entities without legal process,” Jordan wrote. “On May 25, 2023, we requested your voluntary cooperation with our oversight efforts to determine the extent to which financial institutions, such as Bank of America Corporation (BoA), worked with the FBI to collect Americans’ data.”
“In response, the Committee has received 223 pages of documents responsive to our original requests,” he continued. “However, to date, BoA has refused to provide the Committee and Select Subcommittee with the filing it turned over to the FBI.”
Anyone who used a BofA debit or credit card to buy something in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area on January 5th, 6th, or 7th was placed on a list that the bank handed over to the FBI “voluntarily and without any legal process,” Jordan told Moynihan.
“When that information was brought to the attention of Steven Jensen, the FBI’s then-Section Chief of the Domestic Terrorism Operations Section, he acted to ‘pull’ the BoA information from FBI systems because ‘the leads lacked allegations of federal criminal conduct,’” he stated.
“Documents obtained by the Committee and Select Subcommittee show that the FBI also provided BoA with specific search query terms, indicating that the FBI was ‘interested in all financial relationships’ of BoA customers transacting in Washington D.C. and that had made ‘ANY historical purchase’ of a firearm, or those who had purchased a hotel, Airbnb, or airline travel within a given date range,” Jordan continued.
Though Bank of America claimed the legal process was initiated by the Department of Treasury, records reviewed by the committee indicate otherwise.
“In its June 22, 2023, letter to the Committee, BoA asserted that its actions ‘were within a legal process initiated by the United States Department of the Treasury,’” Jordan wrote. “Contrary to these assertions, however, documents on file with the Committee and Select Subcommittee indicate that the FBI—not the U.S. Department of the Treasury—initiated contact directly to BoA, and without legal process.”
“As a result,” the lawmaker said, “it is unclear what ‘legal’ process permits the FBI or BoA to share the sensitive customer information of potentially thousands of BoA customers and implicate them in a federal law enforcement investigation without any clear criminal nexus.”
“This is a huge privacy concern,” Jordan wrote on X.
Yesterday, @Weaponization subpoenaed Bank of America for sharing private financial data of customers with the FBI.
In 2021, BoA provided the FBI—voluntarily and without any legal process—with a list of individuals who made transactions in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area…
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) November 17, 2023
In his letter to Moynihan, Jordan noted that, if such an authority does exist “as BoA asserts, for BoA to freely share private financial information without any legal process or specific nexus to criminality, Congress has a responsibility to consider reforms that adequately protect Americans’ information.”
“It should not be the case,” Jordan stated, “that federal law enforcement has carte blanche access to Americans’ financial information by deeming a transaction or class of transactions as ‘suspicious’ or otherwise.”
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