House Judiciary expands probe into banks sharing data with FBI

"According to veteran FBI employees, without any legal process, a major financial institution provided the private financial information of Americans to the most powerful law enforcement entity in the country," they wrote.

By Ben Whedon

Published: June 12, 2023 3:48pm

House Judiciary Republicans announced on Monday an expansion of their investigation into banks voluntarily sharing consumer data with the FBI after previously demanding answers of Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan.

The committee released letters to the leaders of Citigroup, JPMorgan, PNC Financial Services, Truist, U.S. Bancorp, and Wells Fargo in which they pointed to Bank of America voluntarily sharing private consumer data with the bureau related to transactions made in the Washington, D.C., area around Jan. 6, 2021.

Retired FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst George Hill had previously testified that Bank of America "with no directive from the FBI, data-mined its customer base. And they data-mined a date range of 5 to 7 January [of 2021] any BOA customer who used a BOA product."

Jordan and Massie bank letters

In the Monday letters, Chairman Jim Jordan and Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie indicated they sought to learn "whether other financial institutions similarly provided federal law enforcement with private customer data."

"We find this testimony alarming," the pair said of Bank of America's alleged actions. "According to veteran FBI employees, without any legal process, a major financial institution provided the 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 customers’ transactions over a three-day period. This information undoubtedly included private details about individuals who had nothing at all to do with the events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021," they continued.

The lawmakers specifically demand that the banks hand over documents and communications related to the use of their services on or around the data of Jan. 6, 2021, and any materials related to the provision of such data to the FBI or any communications with the bureau.

Each bank received a deadline of June 26 to comply.