Operation Choke Point Is No More

Red Tape

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A win for the good guys!  Operation Choke Point is no more.  This underreported story was pointed out by James Taranto who helped me with my first Wall Street Journal op-ed (Stimulate the Economy and Spend Nothing, jan. 16, 2017 )  I’ve written about this abysmal assault on our Constitutional rights before. Click here and here and here and here.

Reporting in the Washington Examiner, Joseph Lawlor wrote

The Trump administration has ended Operation Choke Point, the anti-fraud initiative started under the Obama administration that many Republicans argued was used to target gun retailers and other businesses that Democrats found objectionable.

Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd told GOP representatives in a Wednesday letter 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 extra-legal 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“All of the department’s bank investigations conducted as part of Operation Chokepoint are now over, the initiative is no longer in effect, and it will not be undertaken again,” Boyd wrote in the letter.

The letter was addressed to Jeb Hensarling and Bob Goodlatte, the chairmen of the Financial Services and Judiciary Committees, respectively. Their staffs confirmed they received the letter.

Here’s the full letter from Assistant Attorney General Boyd.

 

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About Tony Lima

Retired after teaching economics at California State Univ., East Bay (Hayward, CA). Ph.D., economics, Stanford. Also taught MBA finance at the California University of Management and Technology. Occasionally take on a consulting project if it's interesting. Other interests include wine and technology.