GOP lawmakers are seeking answers as to why Bank of America voluntarily supplied the FBI with information on its customers who may or may not have been involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S Capitol.
According to a press release by the House Judiciary Committee, Republican Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Thomas Massie of Kentucky wrote Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan demanding information about communications between BoA, the FBI, and the Justice Department.
Their letter followed a report by the Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government in which a whistleblower testified that BoA gave the FBI a list of customers who had made financial transactions in the Washington metro area between Jan. 5-7, 2021.
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The bank apparently did so voluntarily and without having to comply with any legal reason or process — and in violation of federal law.
The report also indicates that people who had previously bought a gun with a BoA debit or credit card were elevated to the top of the list, regardless of when or where the purchase was made.
In their letter to Moynihan, Jordan, and Massie noted that retired FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst George Hill testified that BoA “data-mined” its customer base and gave the FBI a “huge list” of people based on the parameters of its search.
Hill also testified that “there was “no geographic framework” and no date range on the list of those who bought guns.
“You could be a resident of Iowa, be a BOA customer, purchased a shotgun in 1999, go to the District, use your credit card to pay for a hotel on January 5th and check out. You’re going to rise to the top of that list,” Hill testified to the committee, according to the letter.
The lawmakers wrote that Hill’s testimony was corroborated by his former supervisor, Joseph Bonavolonta, who led the FBI’s Boston field office.
Bonavolonta told lawmakers that BoA provided the FBI with information about customers who lived in New England who made hotel reservations or bought plane tickets for around Jan. 6.
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The information offered by BoA was shared with FBI offices around the country.
“This testimony is alarming,” Jordan and Massie wrote.
“According to veteran FBI employees, BoA provided, without any legal process, private financial information of Americans to the most powerful law enforcement entity in the country. This information appears to have had no individualized nexus to particularized criminal conduct but was rather a data dump of BoA customers’ transactions over a three-day period.”
“This information,” they continued, “undoubtedly included private details about BoA customers who had nothing at all to do with the events of January 6. Even worse, BoA specifically provided information about Americans who exercised their Second Amendment right to purchase a firearm.”
“Congress has an important interest in ensuring that Americans’ private information is protected from collection by federal law enforcement agencies without proper due process.”
They pointed out that federal law prohibits financial institutions from providing authorities with financial records of any customer except in accordance with legal provisions.
The lawmakers told Moynihan that they wanted to understand how and to what extent financial institutions like BoA “worked with the FBI to collect Americans’ data.”
They asked for all the records outlined in the whistleblower’s testimony between Jan. 1, 2021, and the present regarding supplying the FBI the customers’ financial records, as well as any communications with the Justice Department.
Moynihan has until June 8 to comply.
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