The Treasury Department has admitted that it assisted law enforcement in catching people involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol breach by urging banks to comb through customers’ private transactions using terms like “MAGA” and “Trump” as part of a surveillance scheme intended to combat money launderers but used to track down Jan. 6ers.
Tthe Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the US Treasury Department’s financial crime-fighting unit, engaged in “pervasive financial surveillance” by distributing documents to banks that listed keywords that could be used to flag private financial transactions of potential Jan. 6 suspects for law enforcement.
The documents also purportedly provided instructions for banks to use indicators such as “the purchase of books (including religious texts)” and subscriptions to media with “extremist views.”
The startling allegations that FinCEN compelled banks to monitor their customers’ private transactions for suspicious charges based in part on political and religious expression drove Republican senators to seek answers.
Among these was Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, who pressed Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and FinCEN director Andrea Gacki for answers in a Jan. 19 letter, claiming that, if true, the allegations “represent a flagrant violation of Americans’ privacy