(Katie J. Read, Liberty Headlines) Last night, the House passed a bill 395 to 2 that would forever kill the Obama Administration’s “Operation Choke Point” initiative, which pressured banks to terminate accounts with “high risk” businesses such as those who deal firearms.
The program began in 2013 when the DOJ started sending warnings to financial institutions that worked with gun dealers and other heavily cash-based businesses – all legal – such as pawn shops, pay day lenders, and precious metals dealers.
The DOJ included statements from the FDIC that claimed gun dealers posed a “high risk” of illegal activity and carried “reputational risk,” although the agency provided no evidence.
The intimidation tactic caused many banks to discontinue their relationship with gun retailers and other businesses considered “suspect” in the eyes of the Obama administration.
After House conservatives asked for the practice to be terminated, the Department of Justice ended the program in mid-August, as Liberty Headlines reported.
The new bill will prevent federal banking agencies from requesting or ordering a bank or credit union to terminate a customer without reason.
In August, when the Trump Administration ended the policy, Reps. Bob Goodlatte, Tom Marino, Blaine Luetkemeyer, and Darrell Issa issued a statement celebrating their victory.
“We applaud the Trump Justice Department for decisively ending Operation Choke Point. The Obama Administration created this ill-advised program to suffocate legitimate businesses to which it was ideologically opposed by intimidating financial institutions into denying banking services to those businesses,” they wrote.
The group also wrote that the end of “Operation Choke Point” would allow the department to “pursue lawbreakers, not legitimate businesses.”
Read more: LibertyHeadlines
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