Chairman Jordan Expands Financial Surveillance Investigation to Other Major Companies
Press Release
WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) sent letters to the Chief Executive Officers of Standard Chartered Bank USA, Truist, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, Western Union, Charles Schwab, Bank of America, Citibank, HSBC Bank, JPMorgan Chase, MUFG Bank, PayPal, and Santander Bank requesting documents and communications related to the Committee's investigation of financial surveillance of American citizens, including the disclosure of private financial records to federal authorities without legal process.
Documents obtained by the Committee and Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government show that the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) circulated specific materials to these banks, and the Committee believes that these banking institutions possess information necessary for the investigation. The Committee previously sent letters to Bank of America, Chase, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, Citibank, and Truist for its probe into how the FBI worked together with banks to spy on Americans following the events of January 6, 2021, without a warrant.
The Committee also sent a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen demanding all Bank Secrecy Act filings, including Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs), that included the tag created to group all SARs related to the events following January 6, 2021.
Excerpts of the letter to Charles Schwab:
"After receiving documents and information from several entities, the Committee and Select Subcommittee learned that thefinancial surveillance occurring in the United States is much broader than the FBI simply requesting, without any legal process, a list of customers' transactions from Bank of America. On March 6, 2024, the Committee and Select Subcommittee released an interim staff report detailing its findings to date on how federal law enforcement is using private banks to pry into the private transactions of American customers. That report highlighted how, following January 6, 2021, federal law enforcement commandeered financial institutions' databases, sought to treat sweeping classes of otherwise lawful transactions as potentially 'suspicious,' and profiled Americans using Merchant Category Codes (MCCs), 'typologies,' and 'indicators' that treated protected political and religious expression as indicative of domestic violent extremism.
“The Committee and Select Subcommittee remain concerned about how and to what extent federal law enforcement and financial institutions continue to spy on Americans by weaponizing backdoor information sharing and casting sprawling classes of transactions, purchase behavior, and protected political or religious expression as potentially 'suspicious' or indicative of 'extremism.'"
Read the full letter to Treasury Secretary Yellen here.
Read the full letter to Standard Chartered Bank USA here.
Read the full letter to Truist here.
Read the full letter to U.S. Bank here.
Read the full letter to Wells Fargo here.
Read the full letter to Western Union here.
Read the full letter to Charles Schwab here.
Read the full letter to Bank of America here.
Read the full letter to Citibank here.
Read the full letter to HSBC Bank here.
Read the full letter to JPMorgan Chase here.
Read the full letter to MUFG Bank here.
Read the full letter to PayPal here.
Read the full letter to Santander Bank here.
https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/chairman-jordan-expands-financial-surveillance-investigation-other-major
Download the letters here