Holder’s Latest Scandal: DOJ Now Pressuring Banks to Refuse Service to Gun Stores

Holder’s Latest Scandal: DOJ Now Pressuring Banks to Refuse Service to Gun Stores

Operation Choke Point also targets other legal businesses for political reasons

Kit Daniels
Infowars.com
April 30, 2014

Comment from Alex Jones: This is a classic example of criminal racketeering. Holder is shutting down businesses just like the Nazis targeted the assets and later the companies of Jews in the 1930′s. The DoJ has been caught shipping guns to drug dealers, terrorists and gang members in Mexico under Fast and Furious, yet Holder is targeting legitimate, lawful gun shops. This is completely outside of the law and resembles the behavior of a dictatorship. Impeachment proceedings must begin immediately.
For the past several months, the U.S. Department of Justice has been pressuring banks to refuse service to businesses the DOJ is targeting politically, such as gun stores, in a program entitled Operation Choke Point.

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Corrupt Attorney General Eric Holder has been involved in no less than 16 scandals.

Under the program, the DOJ, headed by Attorney General Eric Holder, is attempting to shut down various legal businesses, including firearm dealers, dating services, purveyors of drug paraphernalia and pornography distributors, by coercing financial institutions to close the bank and merchant accounts associated with these businesses.
The businesses targeted follow a 2011 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation bulletin which lists all of the above legal activities and others as “merchant categories that have been associated with high-risk activity” involving “disreputable merchants.”
“Although many clients of payment processors are reputable merchants, an increasing number are not and should be considered ‘high risk,’” the bulletin reads. “These disreputable merchants use payment processors to charge consumers for questionable or fraudulent goods and services.”
In other words, the FDIC, and now the DOJ, are trying to demonize gun shops by causing banks to view legal firearm dealers as no different than pushers of “ponzi schemes” and “get rich products,” two “high-risk” activities that are also listed in the bulletin.
In 2012, Bank of America told a gun company, McMillan Group International, that because it was expanding into firearms manufacturing, the bank no longer wanted McMillan’s business.
“We have to assess the risk of doing business with a firearms-related industry,” the bank’s representative told operations director Kelly McMillan.
And back in March, a Florida couple who own a gun store received a letter from BankUnited informing them that the bank was closing their business account, which they opened seven years prior, and gave them three days to transfer their money elsewhere.
“I was very angry,” Elizabeth Liberti told the Miami New Times. “They were very inconsiderate. We had all our credit cards going through that bank.”
“All of a sudden, we had to run and find another bank to keep our business going. We shut down for two weeks, and they wouldn’t even tell us why.”
BankUnited finally gave them a reason some time later.
“This letter in no way reflects any derogatory reasons for such action on your behalf, but rather one of industry,” wrote branch manager Ricardo Garcia. “Unfortunately your company’s line of business is not commensurate with the industries we work with.”
And it isn’t just gun stores that the Justice Dept. is targeting.
Last week, Xbiz, a news outlet pertaining to adult entertainment, reported that Chase Bank was sending out letters to hundreds of porn stars notifying them that their accounts would be terminated.
“I got a letter and it was like please cancel all transactions, please fix your automatic pay account and make sure everything’s taken care of by May 11,” actress Teagan Presley told Xbiz. “I called them and they told me that because I am, I guess, public and am recognizable in the adult business, they’re closing my account.”
“Even though I don’t use my account, it’s my personal account that I’ve had since I was 18, when it was Washington Mutual before Chase bought them out.”
And when Presley went to Bank of America to open a new account, the bank also turned her away.
An adult industry attorney, Michael Fattorosi, told Xbiz that banks in the past have “notoriously closed adult accounts or people in the industry’s accounts, but nothing like this.”
That’s because this discrimination is coming straight from the Justice Dept.
Jason Oxman, the CEO of the Electronic Transactions Association, recently revealed the massive scope of Operation Choke Point, which he indicated was also targeting ammunition sales.
The DOJ is ensuring the banks’ cooperation by threatening them “with subpoenas, civil investigative demands, and other burdensome and costly legal demands,” he wrote on The Hill. “And it’s working – payments companies across the country are cutting off service to categories of merchants that – although providing a legal service – are creating the potential for significant financial and reputational harm as law enforcement publicizes its activities.”
The Justice Dept.’s ultimate goal is to shut down these businesses completely.


This article was posted: Wednesday, April 30, 2014 at 12:44 pm


http://www.infowars.com/holders-late...to-gun-stores/

See What Happened When 70,000 Gun Owners Gathered To Fight Obama’s Anti-Gun Agenda

Posted on 29 April, 2014 by clyde

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Video at the Page Link:

This past weekend, Second Amendment supporters from across the country gathered in Indianapolis, Ind., for the NRA’s “Stand and Fight” rally.
The convention brought in over 70,000 proud American gun owners, who are deeply concerned about the Obama administration’s attempts to rid law-abiding citizens of their firearms.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin served as Stand and Fight’s keynote speaker and fired up the crowd (literally). She emphasized that the Obama administration wants to control more than the economy and the media, but also, the people.
SEE ALSO: Michelle Obama Acts Foolishly on Stage at White House
She warned of the potential of a national gun registry and harsher gun control laws.
Attendees told reporters they traveled to Indiana to “fight for their Constitutional rights that are being infringed upon,” and to show the federal government that there are 5 million NRA supporters who won’t allow for the dismissal of the U.S. Constitution.
Do you stand with these NRA supporters? Tell us in the comments below!
http://americanoverlook.com/see-what-happened-when-70000-gun-owners-gathered-to-fight-obamas-anti-gun-agenda/15993#?utm_source=gopthedailydose


http://gopthedailydose.com/2014/04/2...ti-gun-agenda/

"Operation Choke Point" Raises Alarms

Posted on May 2, 2014

For the last several days, rumors have been circulating about the use of federal financial services regulators to harass and intimidate banks and financial service providers who maintain relationships with legal but so-called "high risk" merchants or businesses. These businesses are said to include, among others, payday lenders, escort services, producers of pornography, gaming interests, and purveyors of drug paraphernalia. By leaning on the banks, so the theory goes, the regulators will cause them to sever relationships with these businesses, thereby choking off their cash flow and forcing them out of the market. While the early phase of the operation has reportedly focused on payday lenders and pornography interests, eventual targets are said to include sellers of firearms and ammunition.

We have been aware of this story for some time. NRA News, for example, originally reported on it last January. Breitbart news also noted in January that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Chairman of the Economic Growth Subcommittee, sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding further information on the program. In a follow up story on NRA News in April, Andrew Langer from the Institute for Liberty reiterated the allegations and reported that the program is expanding. The House Committee on Financial Services additionally held a hearing on April 8 entitled, "Who's in Your Wallet: Examining How Washington Red Tape Impairs Economic Freedom," at which concerns over Operation Choke Point were expressed by both sides of the aisle.

In addition to these concerns, NRA is aware of episodes in which banks have severed their relationships with customers in the firearm industry, as well as the policies of various online services – such as Google Shopping, eBay, Craigslist, and PayPal--to refuse to host listings for, or process sales of, firearms or ammunition.

We know as well that various anti-gun groups have taken their cause to the private sector with varying degrees of success. Indeed, as we have reported, this is a niche that is actively being pursued by Michael Bloomberg's recently-acquired (and ponderously named) anti-gun franchise, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. In March, NRA successfully defeated a Bloomberg-backed effort to remove firearm-related content from Facebook. Meanwhile, anti-gun mayors have floated plans to use city contracts to impose their gun control wishes, usually with instant pushback from their own police forces. Some public pension plans have also begun divesting themselves of publicly-traded companies related to firearm or ammunition.

Gun control proponents, having achieved only limited success in the legislative arena, have without question sought additional avenues for restrictions through the business community. While all of these developments deserve close attention, we have not substantiated that they are part of an overarching federal conspiracy to suppress lawful commerce in firearms and ammunition, or that the federal government has an official policy of using financial regulators to drive firearm or ammunition companies out of business. This in no way diminishes, however, the real and continuing threats gun owners face from politically unaccountable federal bureaucrats – whose actions we have recently reported on here, here, and here – or the need for consumers to be aware that their own behavior and spending habits can influence decisions businesses make about firearms.

Rest assured, NRA will continue to monitor developments concerning Operation Choke Point and report on any significant activity of concern to gun owners. The Obama administration's record--which includes the Fast & Furious scandal, a federal firearm registration scheme, and a reversal of U.S. policy leading to the signing an international gun control treaty – certainly provides no reason for confidence. Yet whatever the administration might have in store for the future, the firearm industry for now is experiencing robust sales and growth, a reflection of America's rejection of the gun ban agenda.



http://www.nraila.org/legislation/fe...es-alarms.aspx