Judicial Watch Sues FBI Over Obtaining Of Jan 6th Banking Info

Judicial Watch said Tuesday it filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Investigation for records of communication between the Department of Justice and several financial organizations for alleged financial transactions made by people in the Washington D.C. area on the days surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

The conservative judicial watchdog group said the FBI refused to confirm or deny the existence of such documents. The lawsuit filed Tuesday was created after the FBI failed to respond to another open record request on Feb. 10, 2021.

“We want the details on what looks to be an unprecedented abuse of the financial privacy of countless innocent Americans by big banks and the FBI,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “The FBI’s stonewalling and non-denial denial of our request speak volumes.”

The watchdog is asking for all records of communication between the FBI and financial institutions, including Bank of America, Citibank, Chase Manhattan Bank, Discover, and American Express, among others. However, no time frame was given for the FBI and DOJ to respond to the request.

Back in February, Tucker Carlson exposed that Bank of America handed over customer data to feds following Capitol riot.

From Fox News:

Here’s what that profile was: “1. Customers confirmed as transacting, either through bank account debit card or credit card purchases in Washington, D.C. between 1/5 and 1/6. 2. Purchases made for Hotel/Airbnb RSVPs in DC, VA, and MD after 1/6. 3. Any purchase of weapons or at a weapons-related merchant between 1/7 and their upcoming suspected stay in D.C. area around Inauguration Day. 4. Airline related purchases since 1/6.”

The first thing you should notice about that profile is that it’s remarkably broad. Any purchases of anything in Washington, D.C.; any overnight stay anywhere in an area spanning three jurisdictions and hundreds of miles; any purchase not just of legal firearms, but anything bought from a “weapons-related merchant,” T-shirts included; and any airline-related purchases — not just flights to Washington, but flights to anywhere, from Omaha to Thailand. That is an absurdly wide net.

Bank of America identified a total of 211 customers who met these “thresholds of interest.” At that point, “Tucker Carlson Tonight” has learned, Bank of America turned over the results of its internal scan to federal authorities, apparently without notifying the customers who were being spied upon. Federal investigators then interviewed at least one of these unsuspecting people. That person, we’ve learned, hadn’t done anything wrong and was cleared.