Obama officials targeted businesses they disliked
Sarah Westwood writing for The Washington Examiner, provides a compelling insight today on the collusion of bank regulators and Justice Department officials to smother legitimate industries the Obama Administration wanted to eliminate.
From a congressional report, the findings are damning. The program, known as Operation Choke Point, has been the focus of a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform probe for nearly a year.
Westwood writes: The Department of Justice's role in pressuring banks to drop the accounts of businesses deemed "objectionable" or "high-risk" by officials in President Obama's administration was described in a May congressional report, but the committee’s latest findings point to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation as playing a significant role in the effort.
FDIC officials produced the list of risky industries that later became the targets of Justice Department subpoenas, according to the report. Bank regulators grouped legal businesses such as home-based charities and firearms sales with “patently illegal” forms of commerce like pornography and “racist materials” in a 2011 article obtained by the committee.