The Feds Worked With Banks to Flag Purchases of Bibles, ‘Extremist’ Text
According to the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government (which falls under the jurisdiction of the House Judiciary Committee), federal law enforcement agencies worked with a variety of financial institutions in order to flag transactions containing the terms “MAGA,” Trump” and others. Also, they monitored the transactions of stores such as Cabela’s or Bass Pro Shop. Under the pretext of “preventing extremism,” other purchases related to religious texts like Christian Bibles were flagged.
The Committee and Select Subcommittee obtained documents that indicate that after January 6, 2021 FinCEN distributed to financial institutions materials that, amongst other things, outline ‘typologies of’ various persons of interests and provide financial institution with suggested search words and Merchant Category Codes for identifying transactions in behalf of federal law-enforcement,” the Committee announced Wednesday.
The Committee noted that these materials included a document that recommended the use of generic words like MAGA’ and TRUMP’ to search for ‘Zelle payment messages.’ They also included a prior FinCEN analysis of lone actor/homegrown violent extremism indicators. According to the analysis, FinCEN advised financial institutions about ‘extremism” indicators such as ‘transportation costs, such as bus or rental car tickets for travels with no apparent reason,’ or a repurchase of religious texts or the purchase of religious texts,’ and ‘including’
The transaction was flagged after 6 January 2021.
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The details are alarming and have led House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan to request transcribed interview transcripts with FBI Director Christopher Wray and Noah Bishoff, former Director of Stakeholder Integration and Engagement at the Strategic Operations Division of FinCEN.
In recent years the FBI has improperly conducted hundreds-of-thousands of searches and surveillance on American citizens without warrants.
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