The federal government is sweeping conservative and religious groups into a net of “domestic terrorists.”
A recently released report by the House Judiciary’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government shows that officials from the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network have accused companies including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo. It details how they conspired with virtually every major bank to monitor financial crimes at financial institutions. Help customers identify domestic threats. Government officials warned banks to search customers’ personal financial data for terms such as “Cabela’s,” “Dick’s Sporting Goods” and “religious texts” to help identify threats. They also shared a list of “hate groups” published by the nonpartisan Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD).
This list of groups includes the Alliance Defending Freedom, where I work, as well as religious and conservative organizations such as the Family Research Council, Liberty Counsel, the Pacific Justice Institute, and the Ruth Institute. There is.
As I testified before the subcommittee, the real victims of this discriminatory debanking regime are the American people.
Our story is just one of many that demonstrate the growing threat of perspective-based debunking. In 2023, Bank of America closed the longtime bank account of Indigenous Advance Ministries, a Christian nonprofit that helps poor widows and children in Uganda. The bank also closed the accounts of local Tennessee churches that donate to missions.
The bank claimed it no longer intended to serve its “industry” and that Indigenous Advance was beyond the “bank’s risk tolerance.” The banks’ sudden decision created a logistical nightmare for Indigenous Advancement and had real harm to the populations they serve, many of whom live food-to-feed.
The list goes on. JPMorgan Chase & Co. has stopped banking transactions with the Family Council of Arkansas, citing “high risk,” but not the accounts of the National Commission on Religious Freedom, an organization of former U.S. senator, ambassador and Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback. It did not provide any credible reason for revoking it. And Wells Fargo refused to process payments to the pro-life group Ruth Institute for promoting “hate.”
These debanking stories and many others highlight the systemic risks of political and religious bias that permeate the financial industry, especially the largest banks and payment processors. These institutions maintain reputational risk policies that allow them to use their discretion to punish customers with questionable political or religious views.
Additionally, many institutions prohibit “hate” speech and “intolerance” that require the institution to make subjective, value-based decisions from the customer’s perspective. Both types of policies are vague, ambiguous, and far-reaching, chilling constitutionally protected speech and eroding economic freedom.
Worse, there is ample evidence that government regulators are abusing these types of policies to exclude organizations and people from financial markets with whom they disagree. Whether it’s the Department of Justice and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in Operation Chokepoint, the state of New York in NRA v. Vro, currently before the Supreme Court, or the FBI and Treasury in recent revelations from the U.S. House of Representatives. , both of these cases demonstrate that the government can and will weaponize financial markets against the American people for political gain.
This is very wrong and very un-American.
This financial surveillance and discrimination is currently aimed at shutting down conservative ideas and advocacy groups like ADF, but abuses of power through such censorship will always be rampant. This is an issue we should all agree on and one that threatens everyone, regardless of their religious or political views. We cannot continue to allow too-big-to-fail law enforcement, regulators, and banks to run roughshod over our First Amendment freedoms.
Jeremy Tedesco is Senior Advisor and Senior Vice President of Corporate Engagement. Alliance to Defend Freedom (@ADFLegal).
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