Among the doublespeak and other bombshells disclosed by FBI Director Christopher Wray during testimony to the House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, one particularly disturbing detail he released was that the FBI "regularly obtains innocent Americans’ personal data from companies with the intent of potentially charging them with crimes," the Federalist reported last week.
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Wray told Congress that Bank of America provided them with a “huge list” of financial records for Americans who used B of A cards around the capitol on January 6th. That's right: no warrants, no court hearings, just blindly turning over records when the FBI asks.
Republican Rep. Thomas Massie asked Wray at the hearing: “George Hill, former FBI supervisory intelligence analyst in the Boston field office, told us that the Bank of America, with no legal process, gave to the FBI gun purchase records with no geographical boundaries for anybody that was a Bank of America customer. Is that true?”
To which Wray replied: “A number of business community partners all the time, including financial institutions, share information with us about possible criminal activity, and my understanding is that that’s fully lawful.”
"Those who had ever purchased a firearm with a Bank of America card" were highlighted at the top of the list, the report says. Wray said the data was “shared with field offices for information only”.
“My understanding is that that’s a fully lawful process,” he told Congress. The FBI’s D.C. field office, under scrutiny by Republicans, took the data and then distributed it to the agency’s nationwide offices, according to the report.
Massie questioned Wray: “Was there a warrant involved?”
To which, Wray replied: “Again, my understanding is that the institution in question shared information with us, as happens all the time.”
Trying to unearth whether the information was voluntarily just handed over or requested, Massie followed up, asking: “Did you request the information?”
Wray told him: “I can’t speak to the specifics.”
But then Massie revealed that an email showed the FBI “did give the search queries to Bank of America”. He asked Wray: “Do you believe there’s any limitation on your ability to obtain gun purchase data or purchase information for people who aren’t suspects from banks without a warrant?”
Wray declined to answer in full, stating: “What I will tell you is that my understanding is that the process by which we receive information from business community partners across a wide variety of industries, including financial institutions, sharing information with us about possible criminal activity is something that is fully lawful under current federal law.”
