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.
The Trump Justice Department is ending an Obama-era program that had attempted to cut off credit to shady businesses but came under fire from Republicans for unfairly targeting gun dealers and other legitimate operations. Just days after top House Republicans had pressed Attorney General Jeff Sessions to shutter Operation Choke Point, the department confirmed in a response letter that the program is dead.From reason.com:
The repudiation of Operation Choke Point is a welcome development, says Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute.The process circumvented the entire check and balance system on government power designed into the Constitution. It should have been grounds for serious action by the Republican Congress. It is gone now.
"It should serve as a warning that the government doesn't get to flag for banks—or businesses generally—which legal-but-suspect domestic customers it would like them to ostracize," Olson told Reason on Friday. "Those in power must refrain from signaling that they'd be pleased if certain categories of otherwise legal customer get cut off from their access to economic life." Operation Choke Point began as an extension of the Obama administration's Financial Fraud Task Force, but the dragnet investigation was never given proper statutory authority by either the administration or Congress. In fact, details about Operation Choke Point were deliberately withheld from Congress at first, a fact The Wall Street Journal uncovered in 2013.h
©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
Link to Gun Watch
