Jim Jordan subpoenas Citibank over discussions with FBI on 'information sharing' after Jan. 6

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, on Thursday announced a subpoena against Citibank seeking documents related to an investigation into major banks sharing private financial data with the FBI.

"[T]he Committee and Select Subcommittee have recently obtained documents that raise new concerns regarding the extent to which financial institutions, including Citibank, may have shared customer information with federal law enforcement despite the customers having no individualized nexus to criminal conduct," Jordan wrote to the firm. "In particular, these documents indicate that a Citibank representative was included on emails and Zoom discussions organized by the FBI and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) focused on 'identifying the best approach to information sharing, both strategic and operational,' in the wake of the events of January 6."

"These documents suggest that the executive branch was brainstorming informal methods—outside of legal process—for obtaining private customer information from financial institutions," he continued.

The Ohio Republican previously requested that Citibank share its data voluntarily, though they failed to do so, prompting the subpoena.

"[I]n light of your lack of compliance with our earlier voluntary request and the representation from your counsel that Citibank requires a subpoena to comply with our oversight, please find attached a subpoena from the Committee on the Judiciary to compel the production of the requested documents," he concluded.

Jordan opened an investigation in May into Bank of America's voluntary provision of consumer data to the bureau, after retired FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst George Hill said the bank "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." He has subsequently expanded the investigation to look at other firms such as Citbank.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.