Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) subpoenaed the Bank of America after it gave the FBI customers’ private information.
“In 2021, BoA provided the FBI – voluntarily and without any legal process – with a list of individuals who made transactions in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area using a BoA credit or debit card between January 5 and January 7, 2021,” a press release said.
“When that information was brought to the attention of Steven Jensen, the FBI’s then-Section Chief of the Domestic Terrorism Operations Section, he acted to ‘pull’ the BoA information from FBI systems because ‘the leads lacked allegations of federal criminal conduct.’ Documents obtained by the Committee and Select Subcommittee show that the FBI also provided BoA with specific search query terms, indicating that the FBI was ‘interested in all financial relationships’ of BoA customers transacting in Washington D.C. and that had made ‘ANY historical purchase’ of a firearm, or those who had purchased a hotel, Airbnb, or airline travel within a given date range.”
According to a letter to CEO of Bank of America Brian Moynihan, Jordan wrote, “In 2021, BoA provided the FBI—voluntarily and without any legal process—with a list of individuals who made transactions in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area using a BoA credit or debit card between January 5 and January 7, 2021.”
“Indeed, if such a lawful authority exists, as BoA asserts, for BoA to freely share private financial information without any legal process or specific nexus to criminality, Congress has a responsibility to consider reforms that adequately protect Americans’ information,” the document adds. “It should not be the case that federal law enforcement has carte blanche access to Americans’ financial information by deeming a transaction or class of transactions as ‘suspicious; or otherwise. For that reason, to inform such legislation, it is critical that the Committee understand the full extent of the information-sharing between BoA and the FBI, including review of BoA’s ‘filing’ that it emailed to the FBI.”
“Accordingly, and in light of your lack of compliance with our earlier voluntary request, please find attached a subpoena from the Committee on the Judiciary to compel the production of the requested documents. To the extent that any responsive documents to the subpoena include information such as customer names, addresses, credit card numbers, birth dates, or social security numbers, the Committee requests that the information be redacted to protect personal identifiable information.”
