President Joe Biden’s disturbing mishandling of classified materials is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the latest scandal to face the administration.
Let Amanda explain the latest controversy below:
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
The showdown between former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has America hooked.
Have you already made up your mind or are you waiting for a fight?
Watch Amanda below:
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
George Santos did not stretch the truth. He did not fudge numbers. He did not run afoul of technicalities in campaign finance law. He stole, lied, and exploited vulnerable people for personal and political gain. These were not victimless crimes, nor were they victimless lies. They were part of an elaborate scheme to build a fraudulent political career on a foundation of stolen funds, fictitious wealth, and unearned trust. It is time conservatives stop equivocating. If George Santos were not a thief, he might have been a talented, even promising political figure. But he is a thief, and a spectacularly cynical one at that. He stole from the old and the sick, he stole from donors, he stole from the US taxpayer. He is not a misunderstood maverick or a casualty of overzealous prosecution. He is a con man, and a criminal.
Let us begin, as the law did, with the false image he built. Santos, through deliberate lies to the Federal Election Commission and his own party, fabricated a story of fundraising success. In early 2022, he claimed to have raised over $250,000 in a single quarter from third-party donors, including a personal loan of $500,000 to his own campaign. These were lies. He did not have the money. He did not receive these donations. But this mirage of financial viability was just enough to secure his acceptance into the National Republican Congressional Committee’s “Young Guns” program, granting him financial, logistical, and strategic support. The GOP, believing they were backing a legitimate, self-sustaining candidate, diverted valuable resources to a fraud.
But Santos did not merely fake donor support. He invented donors. Using the identities and financial information of real people, Santos charged their credit cards repeatedly, funneling the proceeds into his campaign, other political committees, and even his own bank account. Nearly a dozen people were victimized, including individuals least capable of defending themselves. One woman, suffering from brain damage, had thousands of dollars withdrawn without her consent. Two elderly men in their eighties, each suffering from dementia, had their identities stolen and their cards charged. These were not passive accounting errors or clerical mistakes. These were acts of intimate, cold exploitation. Santos knew these people, spoke with them, thanked them for their support, and then used their vulnerability against them.
In one egregious instance, a donor who had already given the legal maximum found his credit card charged an additional $15,800 without authorization. Santos disguised this theft by attributing the funds to fabricated family members in his FEC reports, a maneuver that allowed him to continue the ruse while avoiding contribution limits. In another, he charged $12,000 to a donor’s account and deposited the majority into his personal bank. From there, it funded clothing, cosmetics, credit card bills, and gambling trips. The campaign, the candidacy, the public service, all were secondary to a lifestyle of luxury paid for by other people’s money.
Perhaps the most hypocritical of Santos’s frauds involved the pandemic. In 2020, he applied for and received over $24,000 in unemployment benefits from the state of New York. At the time, he was gainfully employed as a regional director at a Florida-based investment firm, earning over $120,000 a year. He did not miss a paycheck. He was not laid off. He did not qualify. And yet, each week, he falsely certified his jobless status, drawing taxpayer-funded aid designed for those hit hardest by COVID-19, the unemployed, the underemployed, the financially desperate. In an act of gall that would be laughable if it were not so despicable, Santos later sponsored legislation in Congress to crack down on pandemic unemployment fraud. The man who stole from the system claimed he would reform it.
Nor did the deception stop there. Santos lied on his congressional financial disclosures, the forms meant to ensure transparency for public officials. He claimed to have earned $750,000 in salary from a private company that paid him nothing. He reported receiving $1 to $5 million in dividends that never existed. He declared hundreds of thousands in bank holdings, when in fact his accounts were often in the low thousands, if not lower. In reality, his only actual income came from the investment firm and the unemployment checks he falsely obtained. The lies were not incidental. They were comprehensive, deliberate, and aimed at creating an illusion of wealth and competence.
Even more brazenly, Santos fabricated an independent expenditure group, a supposed political action committee called RedStone Strategies. He solicited two donors for $25,000 each, promising that the funds would be used for media buys and campaign efforts. They were not. Santos transferred the money into accounts he controlled and spent it on Ferragamo, Hermes, Botox, and credit card bills. This was not merely unethical. It was embezzlement. It was theft. It was a fraud perpetrated with full knowledge and intent.
In total, Santos stole or misappropriated approximately $578,750. The court ordered him to pay $373,749.97 in restitution and to forfeit an additional $205,002.97. These numbers were not speculative. They were calculated against real losses to real people, individuals whose credit was damaged, whose money was siphoned away, whose trust was obliterated. Santos’s 87-month sentence, or just over seven years, was not an outlier in the federal system. It was a typical penalty for this kind of sprawling, malicious financial fraud. Defendants with no political profile, who defrauded the government or private individuals out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, routinely receive similar sentences. That Santos was a congressman did not result in his being singled out. If anything, it spared him scrutiny longer than he deserved.
There is no serious argument for clemency here. Clemency is for excess, for injustice, for punishment that outstrips wrongdoing. Clemency is not for grifters who fake their way into office by stealing from pensioners and pandemic relief funds. One does not defend George Santos by invoking freedom, fairness, or limited government. To the contrary, every dollar Santos stole weakened the legitimacy of our electoral system, diverted support from legitimate candidates, and degraded the moral clarity conservatives must offer in a dishonest age. The true conservative position is to say plainly: this man is a crook.
Yes, Santos was charismatic. Yes, he had a knack for commanding attention. And yes, in another life, with honesty and principle, he might have served well. But we do not excuse embezzlement because the embezzler is clever. We do not overlook theft because the thief is funny. Our movement has spent decades insisting that character matters. If that is still true, then George Santos is not a man to be platformed or pitied. He is a cautionary tale.
Some will argue that Santos’s sentence was harsh. Perhaps. But that is not a reason to pardon him. It is a reason to scrutinize sentencing guidelines for all non-violent financial offenders. Santos should be treated like any other fraudster, no worse, no better. And by that measure, he has been.
Others say we should forgive him because the media was against him. But the media is against every Republican. What makes our side different, or should, is our insistence on personal responsibility. George Santos did what he did. He admitted it. He pled guilty. He is being punished in accordance with the law. He is not a martyr. He is a criminal.
Those who now seek to rebrand Santos as a political prisoner or conservative folk hero are doing damage not only to the movement, but to the truth. And that matters. For if we cannot call theft what it is, if we cannot call fraud what it is, if we cannot reject the normalization of criminality in our own ranks, then we are not a movement of principle. We are just another racket.
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ANALYSIS – The Musk ‘Twitter Files’ exposé showing links between the federal government, prominent Democrat politicians and unconstitutional censorship at Twitter, has been mostly ignored or dismissed by the establishment media.
However, the Twitter censorship collusion saga is being pursued on Capitol Hill. And apparently, the issue is getting a bit hot for the increasingly Nixonian Team Biden.
So hot that Joe Biden’s IRS reportedly sent an IRS agent to harass and intimidate the long-time Rolling Stones reporter who has been doggedly pursuing this scandal since Elon Musk gave him access to a boatload of internal Twitter documents.
An IRS agent suspiciously visited Matt Taibbi’s home the same day he was testifying before congress’ Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, according to House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan.
Why would Team Biden be worried?
Well, Taibbi found in the Twitter Files that Big Tech has turned “the internet into an instrument of censorship and social control. [And] Unfortunately, our own government appears to be playing a lead role.”
Plus, the timing of the IRS visit couldn’t be more sinister.
Michael Shellenberger tweeted:
While@mtaibbi & I were testifying before Congress on the weaponization of the federal government, an IRS agent showed up at his house. What an amazing coincidence
Musk replied to the tweet, saying simply: “That’s very odd.”
However, as the Blaze reported:
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) reckoned it was more than odd, tweeting, “This absolutely stinks to high heaven. The IRS has a troubling history of targeting the political enemies of Democrats. The IRS should NEVER be in the business of harassing the American people.”
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, responded, “Gangster government.”
Jordan is demanding an explanation over the suspiciously timed IRS visit.
It appears Team Biden is weaponizing the IRS to intimidate a witness testifying about how Team Biden is weaponizing the government.
The Blaze continued:
Jordan noted that this interpretation may be apt in light of the “IRS’s history as a tool of government abuse” — citing its hounding of conservatives during the Obama administration” — and the “hostile reaction to Mr. Taibbi’s reporting among left-wing activists.”
A federal agent appeared at Taibbi’s New Jersey home on March 9 and left a note, according to an editorial in The Wall Street Journal.
The note reportedly instructed Taibbi to call the IRS four days later.
When Taibbi did call, an agent told him his 2018 and 2021 tax returns had both been rejected due to identity theft concerns. Yet, Taibbi sees no reason for that visit, nor the alleged rejection which wasn’t communicated before to him or his accountant.
And since when does the IRS send an agent to your house to leave a note over a simple tax return issue?
Jordan called this an apparent executive branch “attempt to intimidate a witness before Congress.” On Monday he sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel and the Department of Treasury on Monday demanding answers.
And he needs answers. As the Wall Street Journal noted:
Mr. Jordan is right to want to see documents and communications relating to the Taibbi visit. The fear of many Americans is that, flush with its new $80 billion in funding from Congress, the IRS will unleash its fearsome power against political opponents. Mr. Taibbi deserves to know why the agency decided to pursue him with a very strange house call.
This type of government harassment should worry all Americans, and its at the heart of why the GOP Congress has created the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.
We all need answers.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – While many of us recently celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ, also known as the ‘Prince of Peace,’ 2023 brings a year of danger and turmoil, with multiple regional flash points that could lead to a major war.
But longer term, another global danger is brewing, more slowly, but inexorably.
This danger is mostly political, ideological, and religious.
And while it may take a couple of more decades to come to pass, this steady shift will have profound historic repercussions and will change the world mostly for the worse.
I am talking about the steady death of Christianity in the U.S. and Europe, and the global growth and potential dominance of Islam in large parts of the world.
And this future looks bleak.
Symbolically, as we just celebrated Christmas, let’s begin with the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. It is built above the site where Jesus was reportedly born on the West Bank of the Palestinian territories.
It still broadcasts beautiful Christmas Eve services worldwide on TV.
However, most who watched the service on TV aren’t aware that the Christian population of Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christianity, has been decimated under Muslim rule.
It has plummeted from 85% in 1947 to 15% today.
Christians worldwide aren’t faring too much better.
There are now 2.2 billion Christians in the world, at least nominally. But Islam has 1.97 billion followers, and rising.
And Islam is growing in two ways – it is advancing by the sword and the cradle.
Islamist extremist violence, terrorism, insurgency, and war, which in a major victory just recaptured Afghanistan, is spreading extremist Islam from the Middle East to Africa at a rapid pace.
Meanwhile, combined with the militant spread, a higher global Muslim fertility rate (2.9 children per woman, versus 2.6 for the rest of the world), means that by 2075, Islam will be the world’s dominant religion.
And where Islam is dominant as a religion it is also dominant politically and legally, as the Prophet Mohammed prescribed.
Of course, Islamist apologists, and Christian-hating leftists, will immediately denounce any criticism of Islam as racist or ‘Islamophobic.’
So let me quickly note that hundreds of thousands of Christian American soldiers have fought, and died, on multiple battlefields to defend Muslims, everywhere from Bosnia to Iraq and Syria to Afghanistan, and even Africa.
I personally served as a Marine Corps officer and military attache’ in Arab Muslim countries as well as in Bosnia where we were protecting Muslims.
I also spent many long days and nights during several months last year, remotely from Washington, DC trying to save hundreds, if not thousands of our Muslim brothers and sisters abandoned in Afghanistan by Joe Biden.
I also did what I could to help these worthy allies come and relocate to the U.S. when possible.
I did this due to my Christian values, my family’s experience being abandoned by another Democratic administration in another previously allied country (JFK and Cuba), as much as my sense of patriotic duty.
Sadly, we likely will never see the actions on a similar scale in reverse.
But the issue is far beyond whether individual Muslims are good, Christians are bad, or vice versa. The issue is what a world dominated by Muslim values, politics, and law – versus one which has been dominated by Christianity – will look like.
And based on what we see in too many Islamic-led countries today, that future will be far worse than what we have now.
Most, if not all, of our western liberal values the left hold so dear, and so do many conservatives, originate directly from Christianity, and indirectly from Judaism.
Yes, Christianity, when wrongly wedded to the state during the Middle Ages, was often used by ruthless monarchs to justify war and intolerance.
But that history is long gone, along with the politically powerful royal families of Europe.
Since at least the reformation, Christianity, including my own Catholic Church, has been free of the state and has been (even if imperfectly) a bulwark of tolerance, peace, and positive social change.
Sadly, the same cannot be said of Islam.
Though many call Islam a religion of peace, Islam literally means submission, and bloody jihad has been integral to its core since Mohammed.
And except when it has been effectively contained by the West, Islam has been an aggressive militant force.
And while Christianity during the past few centuries has firmly returned to its peaceful, almost pacifist, roots of Christ, its founder, Islam struggles with the fact that at its core and founding, Islam is violent and intolerant.
As was Mohammed – Islam’s founder – the warrior prophet.
And whereas in the West we have the separation of church and state, based in part on Jesus’ teaching of ‘give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s,’ in Islam it’s the opposite.
There is no similar separation in Islamic tradition. Islam is as much a political ideology and legal structure as it is a religion.
And though the vast majority of individual Muslims are good, peaceful, tolerant, and loving people, Islam itself allows for officially sanctioned violence and intolerance.
It all too often even rewards it.
And this is why to this day, a small but significant minority of Muslims openly support violence.
As Boston Herald columnist Don Feder writes in the Washington Times:
…worldwide, 8% of Muslims say suicide bombings are “sometimes” or “often” justified in the name of Islam. That 8% may not seem like much, but it means more than 100 million condone coldblooded murder to defend perceived attacks on Islam.
Feder adds: “Even in the West, many Muslims want to live under Islamic law (Sharia), where adulterers are stoned to death and converts to other faiths are murdered.”
To be more precise he notes: “In Russia, where Islam is expected to be the largest religion by 2050, 42% of Muslims support Sharia, as do 71% in Nigeria, 46% in France and 40% in the United Kingdom.”
Feder continues:
While Muslims in the West demand tolerance, Christians rarely get it under Islam. In Egypt, Coptic churches are bombed, congregants shot, and girls kidnapped and forced to convert. All over the Middle East, ancient communities have been uprooted.
Meanwhile, half the population growth worldwide between now and 2050 will be concentrated in Africa, including Congo, Nigeria, and Tanzania.
The growth there is much more by the sword than the cradle, as all these countries have active violent Islamist insurgencies.
In Europe it is the opposite. Europeans are simply dying off by choice, and being replaced, often by Muslims.
Feder explains:
…the European fertility rate is 1.49, well below the replacement level of 2.1. Europe lost 1.1 million people last year. That’s the first rumbling of a coming earthquake. The fertility rate for European Muslims is 2.54. You don’t need to be a statistician to see which way the demographic winds are blowing.
It’s estimated that by 2085, 13 European countries will have Muslim majorities — this in a continent once known as Christendom. Christians are writing their own obituary by failing to heed the commandment to be fruitful and multiply.
And while in the United States, Islam has not yet become big enough to endanger our liberal western culture and legal system, there have been rumblings and testing of our resolve.
This usually occurs at the local level where Muslims may dominate, and opportunistic ‘civic’ leaders may use that as leverage to try to force change in their favor.
However, the bigger threat in America is simply the loss of Christianity. And the moral and spiritual vacuum that this is creating.
Christianity, the former bedrock of American society and the system it was built on, has rapidly declined in the U.S. from 91% as recently as 1976 to 73.7% in 2016, to 64% in 2022.
A third of the clueless Generation Z (or ‘Zoomers’) say they are unaffiliated with any religion or denomination.
According to a recent Pew Research study, Christians will be a minority of 47% in this country by 2050.
So, a belated Merry Christmas to all. We won’t be celebrating it as much in the not-too-distant future.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
Matt Whitaker and Dr. Ben Carson discuss their time together in the Trump Admin and the future of the United States…
per Matt Whitaker:
Dr. Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., M.D., is Founder and Chairman of the American Cornerstone Institute, a new think tank / do tank whose mission is to promote the 4 founding principles which are cornerstones of our country: faith, liberty, community and life as well as pursue common sense solutions that challenge conventional groupthink. He most recently served as the 17th Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
For nearly 30 years, Secretary Carson served as Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, a position he assumed when he was just 33 years old, becoming the youngest major division director in the hospital’s history. In 1987, he successfully performed the first separation of craniopagus twins conjoined at the back of the head. He also performed the first fully successful separation of type-2 vertical craniopagus twins in 1997 in South Africa.
Dr. Carson received dozens of honors and awards in recognition of his achievements including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. He is also a recipient of the Spingarn Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and has been awarded over 70 honorary doctorate degrees. Dr. Carson authored nine books, four of which he co-wrote with his wife Candy. The U.S. News Media Group and Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership named him among “America’s Best Leaders” in 2008.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – As crazy as it may seem, even as violent crime continues unabated and illegal aliens flood into our nation’s capital, the extreme left (aka ‘progressive’) local D.C. government is trying to pass a revised criminal code that would lower penalties for a number of violent criminal offenses.
While the D.C. criminal code is outdated and in major need of revision, making existing laws even more lenient is a recipe for disaster.
This is why the new GOP-led House is moving to quash D.C.’s latest leftist crime-enabling law by using Congress’ constitutional authority over the District.
Murders, carjackings and armed robberies have been in the news almost daily recently, and while the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) claimed that murders decreased in 2022 vs. 2021, the numbers are up for debate and still extremely high.
As a special police officer and security contractor in D.C., I have personally seen the rise in violent crime over the past three years, in part fueled by the BLM riots of 2020.
More than 200 murders were reported last year. This is the second year in a row the number has topped 200.
Meanwhile, other violent crimes, such as armed robbery and carjacking, appear on the rise.
Taking your car by force in D.C., increased by 46% in April 2022 when compared to April 2021.
Armed robberies with a firearm were up 23% by October, having climbed well over 1,000 by that month last year.
And 2023 is off to a worse start.
According to a January NBC Washington headline: “2023 Off to Violent Start for DC, With Crime Up and Some Residents Worried.”
This, in a city which already has one of the highest crime rates in the country.
Washington, D.C. has had the highest violent crime rate of any city in the U.S., at 1,000 crimes per 100,000 residents, based on 2020 data.
Similarly, it had the highest property crime rate in 2020, at 3,493 crimes per 100,000 residents.
Despite all this, in Nov. 2022, the leftist D.C. Council approved the Revised Criminal Code Act (RCCA).
This proposed law reduces penalties for violent crimes, including carjackings, robberies and homicides.
To her credit, the more centrist Democrat mayor, Muriel Bowser, vetoed the bill in January, but the far-left council overrode Bowser’s veto less than two weeks later.
This is why the GOP-led House has decided to act.
The Daily Caller reports:
Republican Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde and Tennesee Sen. Bill Hagerty will introduce a joint resolution of disapproval to block the Washington, D.C., Council’s Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022, which would lower penalties for a number of violent criminal offenses, according to legislation first obtained by the Daily Caller.
Clyde will introduce the House version Thursday. Hagerty will introduce the Senate companion next week, sources with knowledge confirmed to the Caller.
Congress can exercise authority over D.C. local affairs, according to the District Clause of the Constitution (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17), and Congress reviews all D.C. legislation before it can become law. Congress can change or even overturn D.C. legislation and can impose new laws on the district.
As Congressman Clyde said:
The D.C. Council’s radical rewrite of the criminal code threatens the well-being of both Washingtonians and visitors — making our nation’s capital city a safe haven for violent criminals. In response to this dangerous and severely misguided measure, it’s now up to Congress to save our nation’s capital from itself.
The House GOP effort will still have a tough road to follow. It will need bipartisan support to pass in the Senate.
A simple majority is needed, but Democrats control the upper chamber by two seats if you include VP Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote.
After passing the Senate, it would still need Joe Biden’s signature.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
The “special counsel” named by the Biden administration to indict and prosecute President Donald Trump is not only now dropping his criminal cases, he himself may now be the subject of an investigation.
U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), Chairman of the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, “sent a letter to Special Counsel Jack Smith demanding his office preserve all records surrounding the Biden-Harris Administration’s politicized prosecutions of President Donald Trump,” the Committee announced in a statement.
Jordan and Loudermilk also “reiterated outstanding requests to Special Counsel Smith,” including:
Documents and communications relating to meetings between FBI and Justice Department officials sent to or received by Jack Smith prior to the execution of the search warrant on President Trump’s private residence;
Documents and communications referring or relating to the hiring and selection of current and former Office of Special Counsel staff members;
And all documents and communications between or among the Office of Special Counsel, the Office of the Attorney General, or the Office of the Deputy Attorney General referring or relating to the investigation and prosecution of President Donald Trump.
Excerpts of the letter to Jack Smith read:
“The Committee on the Judiciary is continuing its oversight of the Department of Justice and the Office of Special Counsel. According to recent public reports, prosecutors in your office have been “gaming out legal options” in the event that President Donald Trump won the election. With President Trump’s decisive victory this week, we are concerned that the Office of Special Counsel may attempt to purge relevant records, communications, and documents responsive to our numerous requests for information. The Office of Special Counsel is not immune from transparency or above accountability for its actions. We reiterate our requests, which are itemized in the attached appendix and incorporated herein, and ask that you produce the entirety of the requested material as soon as possible but no later than November 22, 2024.
“Furthermore, this letter serves as a formal request to preserve all existing and future records and materials related to the Office of Special Counsel’s investigations and prosecutions of President Trump. You should construe this preservation notice as an instruction to take all reasonable steps to prevent the destruction or alteration, whether intentionally or negligently, of all documents, communications, and other information, including electronic information and metadata, that are or may be responsive to this congressional inquiry. This instruction includes all electronic messages sent using official and personal accounts or devices, including records created using text messages, phone-based message applications, or encryption software.”
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
Law schools across the country are abandoning their decades-long principles going woke and the move could prove disastrous for attorneys, current law students, and prospective law students across the nation.
Let Amanda break down the situation in the video below.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
Americans who purchased Bibles, sporting goods or products associated with former President Donald Trump were flagged for surveillance by a federal government spy program, U.S. House investigators reveal.
After the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, FBI officials told banks that Americans who support President Trump or express religious views may be suspected terrorists, and demanded banks report customers whose transactions indicated they may be political conservatives.
Such blanket surveillance is prohibited by the United States Constitution, which requires the federal government to secure a warrant, based on probable cause, specifically naming the person targeted.
“New documents obtained by the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government reveal that the federal government flagged terms like “MAGA” and “TRUMP” for financial institutions if Americans used those phrases when completing transactions,” the U.S. House Judiciary Committee revealed in a statement.
“Individuals who shopped at stores like Cabela’s or Dick’s Sporting Goods, or purchased religious texts like a bible, may also have had their transactions flagged. This kind of pervasive financial surveillance, carried out in coordination with and at the request of federal law enforcement, into Americans’ private transactions is alarming and raises serious concerns about the FBI’s respect for fundamental civil liberties,” the Committee stated.
In response, the Committee is demanding senior government officials appear for questioning.
“In light of these revelations, Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) has requested transcribed interviews from Peter Sullivan, Senior Private Sector Partner for Outreach in the Strategic Partner Engagement Section of the FBI, and Noah Bishoff, former Director of the Office of Stakeholder Integration and Engagement in the Strategic Operations Division of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN),” the Committee reveals.
Jordan’s letter to Noah Bishoff reads, in part:
“The Committee and Select Subcommittee have obtained documents indicating that following January 6, 2021, FinCEN distributed materials to financial institutions that, among other things, outline the ‘typologies’ of various persons of interest and provide financial institutions with suggested search terms and Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) for identifying transactions on behalf of federal law enforcement. These materials included a document recommending the use of generic terms like ‘TRUMP’ and ‘MAGA’ to ‘search Zelle payment messages’ as well as a ‘prior FinCEN analysis’ of ‘Lone Actor/Homegrown Violent Extremism Indicators.’ According to this analysis, FinCEN warned financial institutions of ‘extremism’ indicators that include ‘transportation charges, such as bus tickets, rental cars, or plane tickets, for travel to areas with no apparent purpose,’ or ‘the purchase of books (including religious texts) and subscriptions to other media containing extremist views.’ In other words, FinCEN urged large financial institutions to comb through the private transactions of their customers for suspicious charges on the basis of protected political and religious expression.
“In addition, the Committee and Select Subcommittee have obtained documents showing that FinCEN distributed slides, prepared by a financial institution, explaining how other financial institutions can use MCC codes to detect customers whose transactions may reflect ‘potential active shooters, [and] who may include dangerous International Terrorists / Domestic Terrorists / Homegrown Violent Extremists (“Lone Wolves”).’ For example, the slides instruct financial institutions to query for transactions using certain MCC codes such as ‘3484: Small Arms,’ ‘5091: Sporting and Recreational Goods and Supplies,’ and the keywords ‘Cabela’s,’ and ‘Dick’s Sporting Goods,’ among several others. Despite these transactions having no apparent criminal nexus—and, in fact, relate to Americans exercising their Second Amendment rights—FinCEN seems to have adopted a characterization of these Americans as potential threat actors. This kind of pervasive financial surveillance, carried out in coordination with and at the request of federal law enforcement, into Americans’ private transactions is alarming and raises serious doubts about FinCEN’s respect for fundamental civil liberties.
“As the former Director of the Office of Stakeholder Integration and Engagement in the Strategic Operations Division, you engaged regularly with financial institutions following the events of January 6, 2021, including the distribution of material about how financial institutions could use private customer information to assist federal law enforcement. As such, your testimony will aid our oversight. In particular, your testimony will help to inform the Committee and Select Subcommittee about federal law enforcement’s mass accumulation and use of Americans’ private information without legal process; FinCEN’s protocols, if any, to safeguard Americans’ privacy and constitutional rights in the receipt and use of such information; and FinCEN’s general engagement with the private sector on law-enforcement matters.”
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
