The story about Bank of America voluntarily helping the FBI gather information on customers without a warrant has changed again with Director Chris Wray’s testimony on Wednesday. Now Wray says the FBI gathers information from their “corporate partners” “all the time.”
In a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, Congressmen Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asked Wray about evidence that the FBI pressured Bank of America to turn over “any” customer gun purchase information from anyone who had been in the D.C. area during January 5 and 6 of 2021. The email request came on January 15, 2021, well after the protest and riot and well after it was clear that the only gunfire that day came from the Capitol Police officer who killed Ashli Babbitt.
Jordan asked Wray if that was true. Wray said he couldn’t recall. The answer wasn’t satisfactory to whoever this guy was over Wray’s left shoulder in the hearing room and likely most civil libertarians in America.
Committee Chair Jordan presented Wray with an email showing that not only did the FBI seek information about Americans from BoA without a warrant or probable cause, but that the law enforcement agency wanted information about “all” gun purchases from customers within the D.C. area.
Jordan displayed an email the FBI sent to BoA asking for the information. It read, “To recap our morning call, we [FBI] are prepared to action [immediately] the following thresholds.” Those thresholds were twofold. “Customers confirmed as transacting, either through bank account, [debit card], or credit card Washington, D.C. purchases between 1/5/21 and 1/6/21.” This means all transactions. And then came the second threshold. “ANY historical purchase [going back six months generally], for weapons or weapons-related vendor purchases.”
Jordan told the committee that the FBI helpfully supplied the search terms it wanted Bank of America to use while spying for the FBI on American citizens who had been charged with no crimes.
Congressman Massie summed up what FBI whistleblower George Hill told the committee: the bank gave the “FBI gun purchase records with no geographical boundaries for anybody that was a Bank of America customer.” “Is that true?” he asked Wray.
Wray said, “My understanding is that the institution in question shared information with us, as happens all the time.”
During his question-and-answer with Wray, Jordan accused the FBI director of scooping up information on innocent Americans. “We had members of Congress sworn in that week,” he told Wray. “The first time they’re being sworn in in Congress, their family in town… and they may be a customer of Bank of America and you’re sweeping up every debit and credit card purchase of their family that week?… And then you’re overlaying that information with did this person buy a firearm?… I’m just nervous about that. Are you nervous about that?”
Wray said he thought that the request was “fully lawful,” but “they recalled the leads,” whereupon Jordan broke in and asked, “If it’s lawful, why did you say we’re not going to use these leads?… This is scary. This is something else that we’re going to have to change.” Wray said he was concerned about how this looked.
https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1679234567549460480
George Hill, the former FBI supervisory intelligence analyst turned whistleblower, said he was vindicated by Wray’s testimony. “[He] admitted in a public setting that the Bank of America list is real.” He said that at first, Wray was “playing dumb,” but it became clear that Jordan and Massie had proof the FBI had swept up all kinds of information without a warrant.
“The Bank of America was providing gun purchase records to the FBI, and the concept was that Wray was trying to pass it off as B of A doing it on their own volition, and the retort was actually no, that this was at the request of FBI officials,” he explained to WMAL host Vince Coglianese.
He explained that the information suck was even worse than discussed in the hearing. “But just to clear something up, the Bank of America, when they pulled that purchase data, they went and layered on top of that anyone in that original poll, anyone who had ever purchased a firearm.” He laid it out: “So it wasn’t just a data pull of people who used a BoA product to buy firearms, it was ‘did you use a BOA product in the Delaware, Maryland, Virginia area in between 5 and 7 January.” Those are larger parameters than even Massie and Jordan revealed. Hill said, “Once you’re on that list, look at it again, and if you ever bought a firearm, you go to the top of that list.”
He said, “Second Amendment voters are usually single-issue voters. This is not a good group to run afoul of.” He was also troubled by the fact that customers haven’t sued BoA. “Why there isn’t a class action lawsuit by BoA customers – I have no idea why.”
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via unsilencednews