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he Obama administration used government power to target disfavored industries, and subsequently sought to avoid responsibility for its targeting program. The new information comes from a motion for summary judgement filed in federal court by the plaintiffs in Advance America et al. v. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. et al. Advance America, a payday lender, was one of the firms targeted by Operation Choke Point. The company contends—and the documents it filed show—that the FDIC was consciously working to target a totally legal industry, and also at a number of points to deny its involvement in the same work. Choke Point...

A Bank of America executive announced Tuesday that the bank will stop lending money to companies that manufacture "military-style" rifles that are available for civilians to purchase. Anne Finucane, Bank of America’s vice chair, told Bloomberg TV that the bank doesn’t want to “underwrite or finance military-style firearms” and has told a number of gun manufacturers that it will no longer do business with them. The bank has lended to the gun makers Vista Outdoor, Remington and Sturm Ruger, CNBC reported.

Image from Zero Hedge Operation Choke Point was an extra-legal attempt by the Obama administration to economically attack businesses that it disliked. It circumvented the rule of law by giving banks incentive to discriminate against a list of businesses. The list of busineseses were those it disagreed with on philosophical and political grounds. Those businesses included firearms and ammunition dealers.  A small business could find its credit suddenly and inexplicit gone. It could find it no longer had the ability to process credit card payments. For many small businessess, this could be a death sentence. From foxnews.com: The Trump...

Republican House members announced Friday that the Justice Department has ended the controversial Obama-era program targeting payday lenders, gun shops, and other legal businesses, in response to several House Republicans who requested Operation Choke Point be shut down. “We share your view that law-abiding businesses should not be targeted simply for operating in an industry that a particular administration might disfavor,” Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd wrote the GOP lawmakers in a letter dated Aug. 16. The letter continued, saying the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation “subsequently rescinded its list of purportedly ‘high risk’ merchants. The Department of Justice (Department) strongly...

The Trump administration has ended Operation Choke Point, the anti-fraud initiative started under the Obama administration that many Republicans argued was used to targeted gun retailers and other businesses that Democrats found objectionable. Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd told GOP representatives in a Wednesday letter that that the long-running program had ended, bringing a conclusion to a chapter in the Obama years that long provoked and angered conservatives who saw Choke Point as an extralegal crackdown on politically disfavored groups. "All of the department's bank investigations conducted as part of Operation Chokepoint are now over, the initiative is no longer...

A North Carolina gun seller won a duel with his local bank, after the lender denied his web-based business its services, erroneously citing a controversial banking regulation, he told FoxNews.com Thursday. For months, Luke Lichterman had tried to get his Hometrust Bank branch to process purchases, but officials told him a 2013 Department of Justice regulation dubbed “Operation Choke Point” barred them from serving a “risky” business, he said. "When I asked the bank representative what other businesses are considered 'risky,' the first word out of his mouth was 'pornography,’” Lichterman, who is 75 and disabled from a serious car...

Less than three months after being denied access to a bank because he sells firearms, a North Carolina gun seller said the bank reversed its policy and offered him the financial products he needs to run his business. Luke Lichterman, owner of Hunting and Defense in Tryon, N.C., told The Daily Signal, “I’m going to be able to continue doing business.” After being initially denied from the bank, Lichterman blamed a little-known program called Operation Choke Point. Operation Choke Point was launched by the Department of Justice in 2013 to fight fraud by choking fraudsters’ access to the bank services.

The Texas senator says he is concerned the CFPB will follow the path of the FDIC and DOJ based on its recent lawsuit filed against various debt collectors and payment processors. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is requesting that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau publicly announce it will not participate in Operation Choke Point or any similar initiative. On May 15, Cruz sent a letter including the request to CFPB Director Richard Cordray. Operation Choke Point is a program in which the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and U.S. Department of Justice reportedly apply pressure to financial institutions in order to...

“The rights of private persons amongst democratic nations are commonly of small importance…the consequence is, that they are often sacrificed without regret, and almost always violated without remorse. But it happens that, at the same period and amongst the same nations in which men conceive a natural contempt for the rights of private persons, the rights of society at large are naturally extended and consolidated”, wrote Alexis De Tocqueville in Democracy In America. “In other words”, writes Tocqueville, “men become less attached to private rights just when it is most necessary to retain and defend what little remains of them.”...

Operation Choke Point, the Obama administration’s under-the-radar project involving the Department of Justice, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) whose goal is to shut down industries it does not like by “choking off” their banking relationships, is taking aim at another business. Brian Lynn, CEO of a Jacksonville, Florida based payday lending company that operates 26 stores in Florida, Georgia and Alabama under the Speedy Cash and Lending Bear brands, has been in business for more than 20 years. He confirms to Breitbart News that two major banks closed his company’s accounts with...

We know that the Obama administration is using their Operation Choke Point invention to intimidate a number of banks to cut-off funding of loans to legal small businesses like payday lenders and gun shop owners, businesses that libs like Obama and Holder frown on. Its not even clear where they get the authority to do this, we know of no law passed that gives the justice department authority to do this. An independent source writes :" It did this through subpoenas issued under Section 951 of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA), which authorizes the...

The head of the FDIC faced tough grilling today from members of a House Financial Services subcommittee including U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton on a rogue policy that essentially directed banks not to deal with businesses the Obama administration found objectionable. Dubbed “Operation Choke Point,” the Justice Department essentially directed the nation’s top financial regulator to intimidate banks into cutting off accounts or doing any business at all with a list of 30 different types small business owners. The list included gun shops, ammunition dealers ... Tipton also got the old DC song and dance when he asked if the federal...

Operation Choke Point, Is this the United State of America, or Obama's Nation? Is the Obama Administration now targeting lawful businesses? Mike Hawkins, owner of Hawkins Guns, LLC received a notice from his bank on November 13, telling him his business account was going to be closed because he was a gun dealer. Upon visiting the bank, he was able to record a conversation with the bank official who said, “We don’t do firearms, ammunition, Uhm, (unintelligible), (unintelligible), auctioneers and check cashing companies.” Hawkins also owns a private investigative business and as a result was able to look deeper into...

The Obama administration’s Operation Choke Point program targets gun and ammunition dealers and tries to make life “miserable” for businesses that it doesn’t like, a payment processor told a Choke Point victim in jarring new audio. Operation Choke Point is a program by which the Department of Justice works with other administration agencies, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to force banks to shut down accounts of businesses that it objects to. The program purports to fight fraudulent businesses, but has instead targeted many gun and ammunition dealers and other lawful businesses.

ACTION: Contact your Senators and urge them to cosponsor S. 477, the Firearms Manufacturers and Dealers Protection Act of 2015. Operation Choke Point a Threat to the Second Amendment About a year ago, the Second Amendment community was rocked by news that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) had teamed up with Attorney General Eric Holder to utterly destroy firearms manufacturers and dealers by cutting off all credit and banking relationships with them.For its part, the FDIC categorized gun and ammunition sales as a "high-risk business," lumping it in with drug dealers, pornographers, and Ponzi scheme operators -- all of...

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has acknowledged its role in Operation Choke Point and is taking dramatic steps to reverse its policies in targeting legal and legitimate industries that are disfavored by the Obama administration. “We’re very pleased they’ve acknowledged their wrongdoing and they’ve accepted our suggestions to put in place measures to stop this activity,” Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., told The Daily Signal in a phone call this morning. Luetkemeyer, a member of the House Financial Services Committee and leader in the fight to end Operation Choke Point, met with FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenbery and Vice Chairman Thomas Hoenig...

Another gun seller says his firearms business was forced to shut down its bank account as a result of the government’s secretive initiative known as Operation Choke Point. This time, he’s offering audio recordings to prove it. Mike Schuetz is a former state employee who worked as a probation and parole officer for eight years in Hawkins, Wis. After working for the state, he told Breitbart News that he decided to open a private investigation business and operate a gun store on the side. His store, Hawkins Guns LLC, sells both firearms and ammunition. To manage his finances, Schuetz set...

Another gun seller says his firearms business was forced to shut down its bank account as a result of the government’s secretive initiative known as Operation Choke Point. This time, he’s offering audio recordings to prove it. Mike Schuetz is a former state employee who worked as a probation and parole officer for eight years in Hawkins, Wis. After working for the state, he told Breitbart News that he decided to open a private investigation business and operate a gun store on the side. His store, Hawkins Guns LLC, sells both firearms and ammunition. To manage his finances, Schuetz set...

The head of a Native American business group, the Native American Financial Services Association, recently told The Blaze that an Obama administration program is harming online businesses that are a key source of funds for tribal governments. The administration program, Operation Choke Point, focuses on certain industries including guns, payday or short-term lenders, porn shops, casinos, coin dealers, check cashers, and debt collectors. The program is run by the Department of Justice and the FDIC. It investigates how banks handle accounts with industries considered ‘high risk.’ Read more at http://www.westernjournalism.com/native-americans-claim-obama-administrations-operation-choke-point-hurting-their-businesses/#o5BSrmSj0rkgHuGg.99

Senior FDIC officials must be held accountable for banking regulators’ “unethical” and “illegal” actions against legitimate businesses that are out of favor with the Obama administration, a congressman with a background in banking said today. In a letter to Martin Gruenberg, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., says he wants a full review of all FDIC employees involved in Operation Choke Point. Luetkemeyer, a rising member of the House Financial Services Committee, names five officials as “implicated in this unsavory affair,” and adds that “to allow these individuals to go without penalty would be unjust.”...