DOJ Ends Operation Choke Point
http://freebeacon.com/issues/doj-ends-operation-choke-point/
The Department of Justice announced in a letter on Friday that it had ended all activities associated with Operation Choke Point.
In a written letter to the House Judiciary Committee, Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd called the program "a misguided initiative conducted during the previous administration" and promised the DOJ was no longer pursuing it.
"All of the Department's bank investigations conducted as part of Operation Choke Point are now over, the initiative is no longer in effect, and it will not be undertaken again," Boyd said.
The DOJ went on to say it would no longer engage in investigations motivated by "political preferences" and specifically said it would not target the financial dealings of otherwise lawful members of the short-term lending and firearms industries.
"The Department is committed to bringing enforcement actions only where warranted by the facts and the applicable law, without regard to political preferences," Boyd said in the letter. "This approach honors the Department's fundamental obligation to focus on the lawbreakers that deserve our undivided attention, and thereby protect the American public from fraud and other criminal activity. We reiterate that the Department will not discourage the provision of financial services to lawful industries, including businesses engaged in short-term lending and firearms-related activities."
House Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte (R.,Va.) cheered the DOJ's decision and blamed the Obama administration for creating the program.
"We applaud the Trump Justice Department for decisively ending Operation Choke Point," he said. "The Obama administration created this ill-advised program to suffocate legitimate businesses to which it was ideologically opposed by intimidating financial institutions into denying banking services to those businesses. Targeted industries, such as firearms dealers, were presumed guilty by the Obama Justice Department until proven innocent, and many businesses are still facing the repercussions of this misguided program. This is no way for law enforcement to operate and runs counter to principles enshrined in our Constitution." ...
The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted. ~ D.H. Lawrence
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