It’s not a crime to dissent from the woke agenda, but that didn’t stop the Biden administration’s financial regulators from treating people who disagree with it like terrorists.
For the past four years, the federal government has placed major banks under immense pressure to close accounts owned by conservative individuals and businesses with little notice or transparency.
This practice — known as debanking — used to be reserved for crime organizations and money launderers.
Under President Joe Biden, though, debanking became one of the federal government’s most effective censorship tools.
Without a bank account, Americans cannot receive direct deposits, pay many bills or securely transfer money.
In an increasingly cashless world, debanking doesn’t just shut a person out of his bank account — it shuts him out of society.
On Wednesday, the Senate Banking Committee is holding a hearing so Congress can begin to understand how widespread this abusive practice has become.
The threat of debanking has affected everyone from a concerned parent who spoke out against school closures to first lady Melania Trump.
If Congress wants Americans to trust our financial institutions, we need to take a blowtorch to this injustice.
The idea of debanking begins with the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, a law that requires banks to monitor users’ accounts to identify and report suspicious activities.
In recent years, the number of such suspicious activity reports has exploded. Banks filed more than 4.6 million of them in 2023 — more than double the number of reports filed in 2014.
Why? President Obama’s Operation Choke Point is partly to blame.
Under this policy, the federal government could sanction any bank that failed to report “high-risk” accounts, including payday lenders and firearms dealers.
After identifying a “high-risk” account, banks must then either close it or follow a burdensome compliance process where any misstep could result in more sanctions.
Most banks understood that the federal government wasn’t really giving them a choice but to report and close these accounts.
The Biden administration saw this as an opportunity.
Instead of waiting for a bank to identify and report a suspicious account, Biden’s enforcers got the ball rolling, giving major banks a list of supposedly “high-risk” individuals and requesting reports back.
The FBI and the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network allegedly flagged any purchases of firearms, Bibles, and anything associated with the terms “MAGA” or “Trump” as indicators of extremism, according to an investigation by the House Judiciary Committee.
The Biden administration effectively forced bankers to spy on their customers and destroy any account the government didn’t like.
No one knows how widespread this targeting has been, because regulators don’t allow banks to tell customers why they closed their accounts.
They say imitation is the highest form of flattery. The Chinese Communist Party must be proud.
The heavy hand of government regulators, encouraged by Presidents Barack Obama and Biden as they competed in the woke Olympics, has incentivized banks to discriminate against entire industries.
Bank of America allegedly debanked the company GEO Group because it helped Immigration and Customs Enforcement operate migrant detention centers at the border.
The National Rifle Association similarly faced the threat of debanking after New York regulators allegedly pressured banks and insurance providers to cut ties with pro-gun groups — a policy the Supreme Court unanimously held could be a violation of the First Amendment.
Fair-minded Americans know the federal government should not be enticing major banks to treat law-abiding citizens like terrorists.
That’s why I’ve introduced the No Red and Blue Banks Act, which would prohibit the federal government from contracting with banks that refuse to do business with companies solely because of political differences.
Another bill, the Fair Access to Banking Act, would prevent banks and payment card networks from discriminating against people based on their politics.
In America, you can believe what you want.
Congress must protect all law-abiding citizens from religious and political discrimination, including their ability to bank.
John Kennedy represents Louisiana in the US Senate.