Americans expect government officials to protect our constitutional liberties, not to undercut them by weaponizing financial institutions against lawful but politically disfavored businesses.

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In contemporary lexicon, few terms have been reduced to shopworn tatters more than “fascist,” typically through mindless overuse against the current democratically elected occupant of the White House.  

To the degree that fascism references an economy corrupted by government collusion with private industry to enforce ideological conformity, however, efforts like “Operation Choke Point” targeting politically disfavored businesses actually merit that descriptor.  

In welcome news, however, Citigroup announced this month that it would no longer deny financial services to firearms retailers, moving the nation one step closer to an end of that execrable campaign.  

Americans expect government officials to protect our constitutional liberties, not to undercut them by weaponizing financial institutions against lawful but politically disfavored businesses.  That’s precisely what happened, however, under Operation Choke Point.  

Launched during the Obama administration under the guise of combating alleged financial fraud, Operation Choke Point saw federal bureaucrats pressure banks and payment processors to sever ties with entire categories of perfectly legal businesses.  It originated at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2013, in conjunction with banking regulators like the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).  Working together, those agencies warned banks that conducting business with certain industries could expose them to legal or reputational risk.  

That ultimately resulted in a blacklisting of businesses like firearms manufacturers and retailers, payday lenders and other disfavored enterprises.  Not due to wrongdoing or criminal conviction, but simply due to Obama administration animus.  

Banks quickly got the message that if they wanted to escape the wrath of their federal overlords, they’d better get in line.  Targeted businesses subsequently found their accounts terminated, their access to credit frozen and their merchant services canceled.  

Firearms dealers and manufacturers found themselves among the hardest-hit, their businesses crippled despite full compliance with federal and state laws.  

Accordingly, among the most offensive and dangerous aspects of Operation Choke Point was its impact on the Second Amendment. The right to keep and bear arms is a natural right protected by the Constitution, not a privilege subject to summary revocation by the Obama-Biden administration.  Yet through intimidation tactics, lawful gun sellers were starved of the financial service oxygen that any typical business needs to survive.  

The implications of Operation Choke Point, however, extended well beyond the Second Amendment.  By pressuring banks to discriminate against legal businesses, it threatened a cornerstone of our market economy: the right to engage in lawful commerce.  

By wielding financial regulators as cudgels to punish demonized industries, Operation Choke Point didn’t just harm the targeted business owners.  It also deprived consumers of choice, and injected political bias into sectors that should operate based on merit, not ideology.

Imagine if the tables were turned, and an administration used the same tactics against green energy companies, socially liberal businesses or environmental organizations.  The left-wing outcry from the likes of Bernie Sanders would be immediate — and justified.  

In any event, if a business engages in fraud or illegality, the proper course is prosecution in a court of law before an impartial judge and jury.  In Operation Choke Point, no charges were filed, no laws were broken and no trials occurred.

That also violates the principle of due process under our Constitution and subverts the separation of powers, because regulators pursued policy goals and imposed penalties that Congress had not authorized and courts had not sanctioned.  

After Operation Choke Point received public exposure, a 2014 report by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform revealed the disturbing breadth of the program and the heavy-handed tactics it employed.  Then in 2017, the Trump administration formally ended Operation Choke Point at the federal level.  

Although that offered a welcome correction, significant damage had already occurred.  Businesses had closed, jobs had been lost and the ominous tone across industry lingered.  Additionally, as the Citigroup example attests, Operation Choke Point continued despite its governmental demise.  

Today, some in Congress advocate legislation to ensure that such abuses never happen again. The Fair Access to Banking Act would prohibit banks with over $100 billion in assets from refusing service to lawful businesses based on political or ideological considerations.  Some states are also considering banning state agencies from doing business with companies that discriminate against firearms, energy or other industries.  

Whatever the potential merits of federal or state legislative action, however, private citizens can demand greater transparency, due process and insist that government stay in its constitutional and limited-government lane.  

Operation Choke Point offers a cautionary tale.  It shows how government and industry can collude to exact partisan punishment and erode rights not through legitimate prohibitions, but through bureaucratic manipulation.  For that, “fascist” is not an excessively inflammatory term.