Biden Admin Confirms Using Financial Surveillance To Help Feds Catch Jan. 6-ers

The Treasury Department has admitted that it helped law enforcement catch people involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol breach by urging banks to comb through the private transactions of customers using terms like “MAGA” and “Trump” as part of a surveillance scheme intended to fight money launderers but used to hunt Jan. 6-ers.

The explosive allegations that FinCEN pushed banks to surveil the private transactions of their customers for suspicious charges based in part on political and religious expression prompted Republican lawmakers to demand answers.

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Mr. Tellez wrote that, following the Jan. 6 incident, FinCEN shared information with banks that included typologies that were based on previous efforts to develop robust anti-money laundering programs that could identify specific types of illegal activity, such as that related to active shooters or violent extremists.

“For example, a document distributed on January 15, 2021, suggested that banks could review payment messages for indications that an individual participated in the assault on the Capitol and included terms such as ”Antifa,“ ”MAGA,“ ”Trump,“ ”Biden,“ ”Kamala,“ ”Schumer,“ and ”Pelosi,“ along with terms indicating an intent to do violence, such as ”shoot,“ ”kill,“ ”murder,“ and ”storm the Capitol.”

FinCEN shared such documents with banks and law enforcement agencies via a series of events on FinCEN Exchange. This is a public-private information exchange platform established by Congress in 2020 for the purpose of disrupting money laundering, terrorism financing, and other crimes.

“FinCEN’s primary role through these Exchange events was to support law enforcement efforts,” Mr. Tellez wrote, adding that these FinCEN Exchange events lasted until around mid-February 2021, so about a month-and-a-half after the Jan. 6 incident.

Financial Surveillance of ‘MAGA’

Confirmation that the Biden administration used what Mr. Scott called “politically charged search terms” to flag customers for the benefit of law enforcement stems from the work of the House Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which are conducting oversight of law enforcement activity against U.S. citizens that may skirt the legal process.

Several days after Mr. Jordan made his allegations, Mr. Scott wrote to Ms. Yellen and the FinCEN chief demanding explanations for what he described as reports of “unwarranted financial surveillance.”

“These allegations are particularly concerning given past efforts to weaponize the financial system and payment activity against politically disfavored, lawful activity,” he wrote.

As an example of such weaponization, Mr. Scott singled out the Obama-era “Operation Choke Point” initiative, which involved the Justice Department coordinating with financial regulators to push banks to deny services to legitimate businesses that the administration was ideologically opposed to, such as gun retailers.

Mr. Scott’s demand for answers led to the Feb. 9 letter from the Biden administration and admission of financial surveillance—which Treasury insists was both legal and legitimate.

“FinCEN is deeply committed to fulfilling this important national security and criminal justice mission in accordance with the law,” Mr. Tellez wrote, suggesting in the letter that, thanks in part to FinCEN, “more than 1,200 people have been charged with crimes in connection with the Capitol attack and nearly 900 have been convicted.”

Among those convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6 incident, roughly 750 have been sentenced, with nearly two-thirds receiving some time in prison.