House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has sent a subpoena to the Bank of America as his panel continues its investigation into how financial institutions dealt with customer information in relation to the riot at the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021.
Jordan sent a letter to bank CEO Brian Moynihan in which he stated that the institution had failed to voluntarily provide his committee with requested documents regarding questions about what information was shared with the FBI following the riot.
On May 25, 2023, we requested your voluntary cooperation with our oversight efforts to determine the extent to which financial institutions, such as Bank of America Corporation (BoA), worked with the FBI to collect Americans’ data. In response, the Committee has received 223 pages of documents responsive to our original requests. However, to date, BoA has refused to provide the Committee and Select Subcommittee with the filing it turned over to the FBI,” the letter said, according to the Washington Examiner.
Jordan said he was concerned about information the bank provided to the FBI “voluntarily and without any legal process,” adding if the bank had “lawful authority” to do so, then Congress ought to “consider reforms that adequately protect Americans’ information.”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 letter said. “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.”
It added: “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.”
