This month, a Trump administration report confirmed Joe Biden’s White House secretly connived to destroy Americans’ financial freedom. Those bureaucrats were upholding hallowed precedents stretching back to the Nixon era, when Congress passed the Bank Secrecy Act. That law made it a crime for banks to keep secrets from the government.

Because Congress has designated more than 4,000 criminal offenses and federal regulatory agencies have greatly expanded prohibitions through interpretation and rulemaking, bureaucracies have broad discretion to target whatever they choose. The Debanking Review by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) examined a hundred thousand complaints regarding nine of the nation’s largest banks. Federal pressure led to banks cutting off companies due to ‘reputational risk” or potential embarrassment to bankers, leading to companies getting penalized for their religious or political views. The New York Post noted that the report detailed how “banks targeted Christian organizations over abortion, LGBTQ issues, and traditional family values.”

The OCC found that banks “maintained public and nonpublic policies restricting certain industry sectors’ access to financial services,” including “oil and gas exploration, coal mining or coal-powered plants, firearms or ammunition manufacturing or distribution,” and more. Yahoo Finance noted, “One bank-owned processor closed a merchant’s account selling Trump-branded merchandise. Another bank declined to provide services to an educational organization because its political arm endorsed only Democratic candidates.” Banks routinely relied on the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) lists to judge private organizations, regardless of SPLC’s endless scandals.

The OCC report details how the feds’ secret arm-twisting led to banks demonizing guns:

“Several banks restricted financing to firearms manufacturers or retailers, including those offering assault- or military-style weapons for civilian use. Others included certain firearms accessories. At least two banks highlighted “polarizing” or “polarized” public opinion surrounding individual gun ownership rights and gun control as part of the basis for their firearms restrictions. Another bank noted that “an association with certain [f]irearms [m]anufacturers and [r]etailers could result in significant [f]ranchise risk, particularly when those firearms are associated with civilian gun violence.”

Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould declared:

“Today’s report provides irrefutable evidence that the nation’s largest banks have denied, debanked and discriminated against customers and lawful businesses. Americans should have access to financial services regardless of their beliefs, affiliations, or political views.”

The new OCC report confirms key points from a House Financial Services Committee report last December. “Operation Choke Point 2.0: Biden’s Debanking of Digital Assets” detailed how federal bureaucrats connived to “push entities involved in the digital asset ecosystem out of the U.S. financial system.” The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) hammered banks to “pause all crypto asset-related activity”—i.e., freeze or terminate the accounts of companies involved in crypto transactions.   

This is like a bad horror show that gets repeated at least once a decade. During the Barack Obama administration, the FDIC and the Justice Department launched the original Operation Choke Point, supposedly to “choke” illegal businesses’ access to financial services. But the target list was stretched to include attempts to destroy financial access for porn stars, coin dealers, online tobacco companies, and other targets.

Federal threats swayed banks to blindside thousands of their business customers. Cigar sellers and manufacturers were clobbered as collateral victims. A Daily Beast story headlined “The Banks’ War on Porn” reported that “hundreds of current and former porn stars” received “curt letters of account termination without further explanation” from their banks. A top FDIC official insisted that the agency’s letters to Congress on the crackdown “always mention pornography when discussing payday lenders and other industries, in an effort to convey a ‘good picture regarding the unsavory nature of the businesses at issue,’” according to a 2014 congressional report.

For some federal regulators and prosecutors, guns were even worse than smut. The FDIC notified banks to “‘prohibit’ payment processing for firearms merchants” and described “loans to firearms dealers as ‘undesirable,’” according to the congressional report. Banks were advised by one private regulatory compliance service: “Arms and Ammunition Dealers are identified as higher risk businesses because they have a higher risk of being associated with terrorism and terrorist acts.” The National Rifle Association complained that banks were “refusing to do business with legitimate law-abiding companies in the firearm industry…without regard to the specific company’s credit, criminal or financial history.” Hundreds of firearms and ammo companies saw their bank accounts frozen or terminated. Representative Sean Duffy (R-WI) complained that federal officials were “weaponizing government to meet their ideological beliefs.” Representative Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) declared, “Unelected bureaucrats at the Department of Justice, the FDIC and other agencies set out to kill legal businesses by starving them of access to financial institutions.”

Emails from FDIC officials showed they were “scheming to influence banks’ decisions on who to do business…[to ensure] banks ‘get the message’ about the businesses the regulators don’t like, and pressuring banks to cut credit or close those accounts, effectively discouraging entire industries,” according to the Daily Signal. Former FDIC chief William Isaac said, “Bankers are being cowed into submission by an oppressive regulatory regime.” American Bankers Association president Frank Keating complained, “The government is compelling banks to deny service to unpopular but perfectly legal industries by threatening penalties.” Operation Choke Point was terminated by the first Trump administration.

Idiocy is no impediment for federal policymakers. Aside from torpedoing bank accounts, the Deep State spurs depraved financial surveillance. The Biden administration viewed purchasing a Bible as a potential terrorist warning sign. Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, revealed in 2024 that the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network stretched its “suspicious behavior” definition to include purchasing a Bass Pro Shop hat, as well as items sold by Cabela’s and Dick’s Sporting Goods. If you’ve bought a gun or ammo between 2021 and 2024, Team Biden bureaucrats may have automatically classified you as a “potential active shooter.” Or maybe your plane ticket purchases triggered the latest “lone actor/homegrown violent extremism” indicators.

Still waiting for confirmation on the secret official warning designation for individuals who peruse libertarian websites.

The OCC report is a breath of fresh air but Americans would be chumps to believe the peril has been vanquished. Legions of laws and regulations remain on the books that could permit federal agencies to deny due process to any business or industry politicians choose to scourge. Start the countdown to Operation Choke Point 3.0.