Lawmaker calls out FinCEN for targeting law-abiding Americans

Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., chair of the Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions, this week delivered opening remarks at the House Financial Services Committee Hearing, “Oversight of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI)”  

“The work you and your teams do is vitally important to our national security because you are the tip of the spear for financial intelligence, sanctions, and countering the financing of terror and other criminal activity," Luetkemeyer said. "However, it has become disturbingly clear from the work of both this Committee as well as the Weaponization Subcommittee that FinCEN has trained its broad, powerful, and often opaque authorities not just on foreign assets but also on law-abiding Americans merely on the suspicion that they may disagree with the Administration now in power.

"The American public deserves to know if the Federal Government is collecting their bank records simply because they wore a red hat to a bank or went shopping at a sporting goods store.

"FinCEN and TFI must be focused on America’s enemies, not innocent American citizens.”

Background: Earlier this year, the House Judiciary Committee obtained documents indicating that FinCEN asked financial firms to search words including "MAGA" and "Trump" as well as transactions related to firearms from sporting goods stores. FinCEN’s ultimate goal was to use information from these transactions to prosecute conservatives.