The federal government is sweeping conservative and religious groups into its “domestic terrorist” dragnet.
A report released recently by the House Judiciary’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government details how officials at the Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network colluded with virtually every major bank, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, to monitor their customers to identify domestic threats. To help banks identify threats, government officials alarmingly told them to search customers’ private financial data for terms like “Cabela’s,” “Dick’s Sporting Goods” and “religious texts.” They also shared a list of “hate groups” published by the hyper-partisan Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD).
The group’s list includes Alliance Defending Freedom, where I work, and other religious and conservative organizations like Family Research Council, Liberty Counsel, Pacific Justice Institute and Ruth Institute.
As I testified before the subcommittee, the real victim of this regime of discriminatory de-banking is the American people.
Our story is just one of many demonstrating the increased threat of viewpoint-based de-banking. In 2023, Bank of America closed the long-standing bank account of Indigenous Advance Ministries, a Christian nonprofit that helps impoverished widows and children in Uganda. The bank also closed the account of a local Tennessee church that donates to the ministry.
The bank claimed it no longer wanted to serve their “business type” and that Indigenous Advance exceeded the “bank’s risk tolerance.” The bank’s abrupt decision created a logistical nightmare for Indigenous Advance and inflicted real harm on the populations they serve — many of whom live meal-to-meal.
The list goes on. JP Morgan Chase de-banked the Arkansas Family Council for being “high risk” and never provided a credible reason for canceling the account of former U.S. senator, ambassador, and Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback’s organization, the National Committee for Religious Freedom. And Wells Fargo denied payment processing to the pro-life group The Ruth Institute for promoting “hate.”
These de-banking stories and many more highlight the systemic risk of political and religious bias that pervades the financial industry, particularly at the largest banks and payment processors. These institutions maintain reputational risk policies that allow them unfettered discretion to punish customers who have, in their view, problematic political or religious views.
Many also have prohibitions on “hate” speech and “intolerance” that require the institution to make subjective and value-based judgments on a customer’s viewpoint. Both types of policies are vague and ambiguous, sweep in broad swaths of content, chill constitutionally protected speech, and erode economic freedom.
Worse, there is ample evidence of government regulators abusing these types of policies to push organizations and people whose views they disagree with out of the financial marketplace. Whether it was the Department of Justice and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in Operation Choke Point, the state of New York in NRA v. Vullo, a case currently pending before the Supreme Court, or the FBI and Treasury in recent revelations from the U.S. House, each of these incidents show that the government can and will weaponize the financial marketplace against Americans for political benefit.
This is deeply wrong and deeply un-American.
While this financial surveillance and discrimination is currently aimed at shutting down conservative ideas and advocacy groups like ADF, censorial abuses of power like this always spread. This is an issue that we should all agree on and threatens everyone, regardless of their religious or political views. We cannot continue to let law enforcement, regulators and banks that are too big to fail run roughshod over our First Amendment freedoms.
Jeremy Tedesco is senior counsel and senior vice president of Corporate Engagement for Alliance Defending Freedom (@ADFLegal).