Trump DOJ ends Holder-era 'Operation Choke Point'

[Cebu_4_2]

Trump DOJ ends Holder-era 'Operation Choke Point'
Published August 18, 2017
Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/)

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.

“All of the Department’s bank investigations conducted as part of Operation Chokepoint are now over, the initiative is no longer in effect, and it will not be undertaken again,” Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd said in the Aug. 16-dated letter, calling it a “misguided initiative” from the prior administration.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and the other GOP lawmakers had written to the DOJ last week asking the administration to formally “repudiate” the program’s guidelines.

Goodlatte and others behind the letter applauded the reversal Friday, saying in a statement: “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. … By ending Operation Choke Point, the Trump Justice Department has restored the Department’s responsibility to pursue lawbreakers, not legitimate businesses.”

The program, launched when Eric Holder was attorney general, attempted to discourage banks from offering financial services to “high risk” customers – a list that included short-term lenders and firearms dealers – but was accused of hurting legal businesses in those categories.

REPUBLICANS PRESS DOJ TO END OBAMA-ERA PROGRAM
(http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/08/14/republicans-press-trump-doj-to-end-obama-era-program-that-targeted-gun-dealers.html)
"Operation Choke Point was an Obama Administration initiative that destroyed legitimate businesses to which that Administration was ideologically opposed (e.g., firearms dealers) by intimidating financial institutions into denying banking services to those businesses," the GOP lawmakers wrote last week.

The lawmakers called for formal policy statements from several agencies to end such practices.

Boyd’s letter to Goodlatte and other lawmakers, obtained by Fox News, seemed to answer their call.

“We share your view that law abiding businesses should not be targeted simply for operating in an industry that a particular administration might disfavor,” Boyd wrote.

Boyd noted that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation earlier had rescinded its list of supposedly “high-risk” merchants, and said the Justice Department “strongly agrees with that withdrawal.”

The letter from Republican members of Congress last week said that list had hurt the ability of some businesses to borrow.

The letter also said Obama administration attorneys, over the course of six months in 2013, issued as many as 60 administrative subpoenas to banks doing business with gun-related entities including payday lenders.

[keehah]

Eric Holder: ‘When they go low, we kick them. That’s what this new Democratic Party is about.'
October 10, 2018
Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/10/10/eric-holder-when-they-go-low-we-kick-them-thats-what-this-new-democratic-party-is-about/)

For the second time this week, a leading Democratic voice is proposing that the party pursue a meaner, more combative approach — with this one going so far as to allude to metaphorical violence.

During a campaign swing in McDonough, Ga., on Sunday, former attorney general Eric Holder notes former first lady Michelle Obama’s high-minded 2016 slogan, “When they go low, we go high.” Then he makes clear he disagrees.

“No, no,” Holder says. “When they go low, we kick 'em. That’s what this new Democratic Party is about."

Several minutes later, Holder clarifies that he’s not advocating anything illicit.

"When I say we, you know, ‘We kick ‘em,’ I don’t mean we do anything inappropriate. We don’t do anything illegal,” Holder said. “But we got to be tough, and we have to fight for the very things that [civil rights leaders] John Lewis, Martin Luther King, Whitney Young – you know, all those folks gave to us.”
The former Obama administration official and potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidate was in the state to campaign for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams and others. His comments surfaced just after 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton suggested that Democrats can’t afford to be civil with Republicans if they want to retake power.

In his comments, Holder noted that he and his wife are close with Michelle Obama and former president Barack Obama. “I love her,” Holder assured. “She and my wife are like really tight, which really scares me and Barack.”...

[Cebu_4_2]

Kick them... OK buddy lets have some fun. I seriously live for shit like this where I wont go to jail.

[Horn]

Their definition of Republicans going low is Republicans ignoring them when they have absolutely no political direction that is appealing to anyone including their own constituants.

[keehah]

webarchieve.org: (https://web.archive.org/web/20210127222516/https://www.occ.gov/news-issuances/news-releases/2021/nr-occ-2021-8.html)occ.gov/news: OCC Finalizes Rule Requiring Large Banks to Provide Fair Access to Bank Services, Capital, and Credit (https://web.archive.org/web/20210127222516/https://www.occ.gov/news-issuances/news-releases/2021/nr-occ-2021-8.html)
January 14, 2021

occ.gov/news: OCC Puts Hold on Fair Access Rule (https://www2.occ.gov/news-issuances/news-releases/2021/nr-occ-2021-14.html)

January 28, 2021
WASHINGTON—The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) today announced it has paused publication of its rule to ensure large banks provide all customers fair access to their services.

The agency proposed the rule in November 2020 to codify more than a decade of OCC guidance stating that banks should conduct risk assessments of individual customers, rather than make broad-based decisions affecting whole categories or classes of customers, when providing access to services, capital, and credit.

Pausing publication of the rule in the Federal Register will allow the next confirmed Comptroller of the Currency to review the final rule and the public comments the OCC received, as part of an orderly transition.

The OCC’s long-standing supervisory guidance stating that banks should avoid termination of broad categories of customers without assessing individual customer risk remains in effect.

stationgossip.com: Red Alert: Biden Admin Shreds 'Fair Access Rule,' Paving Way for Resurrection of Infamous and Hated Obama Program (http://www.stationgossip.com/2021/02/red-alert-biden-admin-shreds-fair.html)

It was called Operation Choke Point — an Obama-era initiative specifically aimed at politically unpopular, but perfectly legal businesses that liberals didn’t appreciate.

To some commentators, like Forbes contributor Norbert Michel, it was “an egregious affront to the rule of law.” Little surprise, then, that the Biden administration did away with a rule intended to prevent it...

During his term in office, former President Donald Trump ended the operation, which had begun in 2013. In January, as the Trump administration was on its way out, it issued the “Fair Access Rule (https://web.archive.org/web/20210127222516/https://www.occ.gov/news-issuances/news-releases/2021/nr-occ-2021-8.html),” which was designed to preclude another such round of intimidation. The rule said “banks should conduct risk assessment of individual customers, rather than make broad-based decisions affecting whole categories or classes of customers, when provisioning access to services, capital, and credit.”..

“[u]nder Operation Choke Point, federal regulators instructed banks to do the opposite — to openly discriminate against entire industries the Obama administration found objectionable.”

“Weaponizing the power of banking regulators at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of Comptroller of the Currency, the Obama administration realized it could block entire industries from the banking system that it didn’t like. This made it difficult — if not impossible — for politically unfavored businesses such as gun sellers and short-term lenders to operate,” she wrote.

“Essentially, by using the power of federal banking regulators to intimidate banks from providing their services to these industries, the administration choked off their access to the financial system, leaving them paying more for essential banking services, or unable to use a bank at all.”

Introducing the Fair Access Rule in January, acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian P. Brooks said that it was critical that legal businesses and organizations had access to banking services...

Federalist piece noted a wider connection “symbolic of the larger attempt by government actors to choke politically disfavored industries and individuals from the mainstream.”

“While cancel culture has led to a politicized economy, the federal government’s arbitrarily targeting of individuals, groups, and entire companies will increase the politicization of the country, where the only acceptable views are from those in power,” she wrote.

“After being choked from essential services in the economy, conservatives and right-of-center businesses will have no choice but to Build Your Own — if that’s even still tolerated or allowed. Build your own banks, build your own credit card processing companies, build your own web hosting platforms, build your own social media platforms, build your own companies, build your own media, build your own schools, and build your own country — because you’re choked from ‘ours.’”

This is how liberals are going to fight their war on constitutional freedoms...

this seems farfetched, remember all of the talk connecting Parler directly to the violence on Jan. 6. Once you single out conservative social media platforms as being a haven for violent groups, choking them off from banking services doesn’t seem like such a stretch.

Consider the fact there are plenty of liberals who could read this, hear me talk about effectively strangling Parler by financial means, and say to themselves: “Yeah, and? Actions have consequences.”

We’re dealing here with the potential for a low-rent, China-style social credit score, and the Biden administration is fine with pausing a rule that would prevent it from happening. That should tell you a lot.

[keehah]

Four CFR members consisting of two University Jews, a middle aged white liberal female and a simp/cuck NPR male Boomer that is the human embodiment of the "I'm not a cat" Zoom kitty filter lawyer (and probably the main reason I posted this video lol) discuss the need for deep-state government bureaucracy and social media companies to surveil, infiltrate, censor, ban, disrupt and destroy any political participation for the half of Americans that are now referred to as 'domestic terrorists' for little more than voting Republican.

Reasons given by these CFR members for the destruction of half of Americans: January 6 riots, Timothy McVey and Randy Weaver and a few other patsies and victims of the US government.


Council on Foreign Relations: Transition 2021 Series: Domestic Terrorism Post-Insurrection
Panelists discuss the rise of domestic terrorism in the United States, and the threat of white supremacist organizations, QAnon, disinformation and fake news, and conspiracy groups following the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
Feb 17, 2021 <700views 2.5 times more thumbs down

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwlbDnS7PNM

[keehah]

fortune.com/2021/10/29: Biden’s $1.75 trillion plan includes an $80 billion expansion of the IRS to enforce new taxes—but critics say it’s not enough (https://fortune.com/2021/10/29/biden-budget-80-billion-irs-taxes-enforcement/)

cbsnews.com: U.S. Treasury amends proposal to track nearly all bank accounts (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/irs-bank-account-update-change-treasury-10000-dollars/)

OCTOBER 22, 2021
After initially proposing to track bank accounts with more than $600 of inflows or outflows, on the Treasury on Tuesday offered a new threshold. More than $10,000 in transfers in a given year would flag an account for reporting to the IRS, the agency said in a press release (https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0415). Wage and salary deposits won't count toward that threshold, the Treasury said.

msn.com (The Hill) Despite Democrats' pledges, an expanded IRS will harass the middle class (https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/taxes/despite-democrats-pledges-an-expanded-irs-will-harass-the-middle-class/ar-AAQPlzr?ocid=BingNewsSearch)

Nov 17
Democrats want to drastically expand the size and power of the IRS. If the left has its way, the tax-and-spend reconciliation bill will create an IRS that will excessively audit, harass and intrude into the lives of Americans.

Democrats want to double the size of the IRS with $80 billion in additional funding over the next decade and deploy 87,000 new agents and auditors. Forty-five billion of the new funding is devoted to enforcement, 23 times greater than funding devoted to taxpayer services (pre-filing assistance and education, filing and account services and taxpayer advocacy services).

Despite what Democrats claim, new IRS enforcement won't be borne by the "rich" and large corporations. They already employ armies of accountants and lawyers to protect them from the agency. Instead, middle-class families and small businesses will be targeted - especially self-employed people, and cash-heavy businesses like restaurants, retailers and barbershops.

The left also wants to have the IRS create a "comprehensive financial account reporting regime" to track the withdrawals and deposits of bank accounts, investment accounts, and Venmo, Paypal, and CashApp accounts of American individuals and businesses. A senior Treasury official recently confirmed the Biden administration is still determined to get bank snooping "across the finish line." Americans oppose IRS bank snooping on principle as an invasion of privacy.

This proposal would clearly harm Americans making less than $400,000 per year, despite assurances by the left.

It is not difficult to see how this violates the privacy of millions of Americans and there is nothing to stop this new reporting from impacting middle-class Americans, especially the millions of independent contractors that do not have wage income. Moreover, the exemptions Democrats have said they will add will likely make the final proposal more convoluted and complex and do not guarantee that taxpayers will not be targeted by the IRS.

Even the higher $10,000 threshold is little more than $200 in total inflows and outflows per week or $800 per month, amounts that many Americans could easily hit.

Democrats also want to have the IRS create and administer a new, government tax filing and preparation system.

[keehah]

npr.org: IRS Apologizes For Aggressive Scrutiny Of Conservative Groups (https://www.npr.org/2017/10/27/560308997/irs-apologizes-for-aggressive-scrutiny-of-conservative-groups)

October 27, 2017
In a legal settlement that still awaits a federal judge's approval, the IRS "expresses its sincere apology" for mistreating a conservative organization called Linchpins of Liberty — along with 40 other conservative groups — in their applications for tax-exempt status.

And in a second case, NorCal Tea Party Patriots and 427 other groups suing the IRS also reached a "substantial financial settlement" with the government.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the two settlements Thursday
justice.gov: Attorney General Jeff Sessions Announces Department of Justice has Settled with Plaintiff Groups Improperly Targeted by IRS (https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-jeff-sessions-announces-department-justice-has-settled-plaintiff-groups)

October 26, 2017
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced today that the Department of Justice has entered into settlements, pending approval by the district courts, in two cases brought by groups whose tax-exempt status was significantly delayed by the Internal Revenue Service based on inappropriate criteria. The first case, Linchpins of Liberty v. United States, comprised claims brought by 41 plaintiffs, and the second case, NorCal Tea Party Patriots v. Internal Revenue Service, was a class action suit that included 428 members. Attorney General Sessions released the following statement about the cases:

“Chief Justice John Marshall wrote 'that the power to tax involves the power to destroy … [is] not to be denied.' And it should also be without question that our First Amendment prohibits the federal government from treating groups differently based solely on their viewpoint or ideology.”

"But it is now clear that during the last Administration, the IRS began using inappropriate criteria to screen applications for 501(c) status. These criteria included names such as “Tea Party,” “Patriots,” or “9/12” or policy positions concerning government spending or taxes, education of the public to “make America a better place to live,” or statements criticizing how the country was being run. It is also clear these criteria disproportionately impacted conservative groups.”

“As a result of these criteria, the IRS transferred hundreds of applications to a specifically designated group of IRS agents for additional levels of review, questioning and delay. In many instances, the IRS then requested highly sensitive information from applicants, such as donor information, that was not needed to make a determination of tax-exempt status.”

"The IRS’s use of these criteria as a basis for heightened scrutiny was wrong and should never have occurred. It is improper for the IRS to single out groups for different treatment based on their names or ideological positions. Any entitlement to tax exemption should be based on the activities of the organization and whether they fulfill requirements of the law, not the policy positions adopted by members or the name chosen to reflect those views.”

“There is no excuse for this conduct. Hundreds of organizations were affected by these actions, and they deserve an apology from the IRS. We hope that today’s settlement makes clear that this abuse of power will not be tolerated.”

[Linchpins of Liberty, et al., v. United States of America, et al., No. 1:13-cv-00777-RBW in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia]
[NorCal Tea Party Patriots v. Internal Revenue Service, et al., No. 1:13-cv-00341 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio]

[keehah]

Peter Schiff talks of "because I criticized them I got targeted" by the IRS and four other corrupt Feds and their corporate news.

@40:30

Peter Schiff: Dollar Breakdown Confirms Lower Inflation Is Transitory - Ep 907

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eae2TiEYguQ

thedeepdive.ca: Peter Schiff Defamed By 60 Minutes — Australian Federal Court (https://thedeepdive.ca/peter-schiff-defamed-by-60-minutes-australian-federal-court/)

September 30, 2022
Euro Pacific Bank (EPB) owner Peter Schiff won his defamation lawsuit against the Australian franchise of the television show 60 Minutes, a vindication for the banker who has been maintaining he was maligned by the program in a so-called “gotcha interview.”

In a 48-page decision, the Federal Court of Australia found guilty the 60 Minutes Australia producer Nine Network, reporter Nicholas McKenzie, and producers Charlotte Grieve and Joel Tozer of publishing and conveying seven imputations which are defamatory about Schiff and EPB. The case relates to the show’s broadcast on October 18, 2020.

“Specifically, the judge found that these defendants defamed Schiff and his bank in seven specific defamatory imputations, such as ‘permitting his bank, Euro Pacific, to be used as a vehicle for around one hundred Australian customers to commit tax evasion,’ and that Schiff, himself, ‘committed tax fraud,'” said Schiff in a statement, citing the ruling.

Lanny J. Davis, Schiff’s counsel, reiterated that these imputations are false and “no criminal charge was ever brought against Schiff or anyone connected to the bank.”

Schiff said that the next step would be the court’s decision on the amount of damages, which he is asserting would be “substantial.”

dailywire.com: ‘The Government Can Destroy Anyone’: How An IRS-Led Global Alliance Ruined An Innocent American Banker (https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-government-can-destroy-anyone-how-an-irs-led-global-alliance-ruined-an-innocent-american-banker)

Jul 13, 2023
In the Bahamas in early 2021, Sam Bankman-Fried was allegedly conducting a brazen, multi-billion dollar scheme. He virtue-signaled for liberal causes, was put on the cover of magazines, and—until things got really bad—seemed to stay off the authorities’ radar.

Around 800 miles east at the same time, a conservative activist named Peter Schiff was running his own bank in Puerto Rico. Schiff is a financier and prominent economist who regularly speaks publicly about how he thinks the government should be run: with fewer taxes and less regulation. The U.S. government teamed up with four other countries to undertake the “world’s largest tax evasion probe” against Schiff. Despite “a very significant investment by all the countries involved,” they found nothing.

Then they destroyed him anyway. Authorities leaked the existence of the investigation to the media, then cited the resulting negative publicity to take the bank from him, costing him more than $10 million.

The IRS’ top criminal enforcement official flew to Puerto Rico to hold a press conference where he gave the impression that the IRS was shutting down Schiff’s bank for facilitating tax evasion and money laundering—even though, if you were paying close enough attention, that was not the case.

Schiff’s Euro Pacific Bank (EPB) was actually being closed by a Puerto Rican oversight board that claimed that it was “critically insolvent.” In other words, the board claimed the bank might not be able to return its customers’ money if there was a run on accounts—which is what happened in the case of Bankman-Fried. But Schiff’s bank catered to ultra-conservative clients who prioritized keeping their money over earning interest. The bank didn’t lend out its deposits, and profits came mostly from charging fees for transactions. EPB kept its depositors’ money on hand, making it perhaps the most run-proof bank in the world.

The Puerto Rican regulator later acknowledged EPB had more than enough cash to cover all of its deposits. Nonetheless, Puerto Rico put it into receivership to “liquidate.” It said Schiff couldn’t be permitted to own it because of “negative press”: articles based on law enforcement officials leaking the existence of the investigation which ultimately found nothing. A year later, the receiver has not returned any of the deposits, amounting to more than $65 million, to the bank’s thousands of customers...

[In 2018] the governments of the U.S., Australia, Britain, Canada, and the Netherlands teamed up to create the “Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement,” or the J5, mirroring the “Five Eyes” program of the intelligence community. J5 was born out of embarrassment over a scandal known as the Panama Papers, in which hacked emails from a law firm in that Latin American country illustrated how wealthy westerners, including then-British Prime Minister David Cameron, had benefited from stashing money in offshore locations.

Though a massive web of crypto tax evasion was rocking the global financial sector during the same time period, J5 appeared to do little for two years. Instead, in 2020, it took its first major action: setting its sights on Schiff in what it called an “unprecedented” “global day of action” that showed that “the J5 are closing in.”

But this seemed like less the result of expert sleuthing than the kind of lead that might turn up from a Google search for people who don’t like taxes...

Just as five national governments worked together on the probe, four news outlets did, too. They included The New York Times and three Australian outlets: The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and Australia’s 60 Minutes, a television program with the same name and style as the U.S. show. The media pieces, which ran in coordinated fashion in October 2020, amounted to breathless cheerleading for a government task force that, so far, hadn’t seemed to show any results. [cont'd]

To this day, the J5 prominently advertises its “globally coordinated day of action” into the bank “whose products and services are believed to be facilitating money laundering and tax evasion for customers across the globe” as a “success.” In fact, it is the only example of an enforcement action on its list of “Tax Enforcement Successes (https://www.irs.gov/pub/foia/ig/ci/j5-one-pager-07-14-2020.pdf).”

[keehah]

Congratulations and much respect to Peter Schiff for his resistance against dishonest FVEY and corporate fake news devils' modern western Stasi-ing!


dailywire.com: Court Says Media Outlets Defamed Conservative Economist, Orders Them To Pay Massive Settlement (https://www.dailywire.com/news/court-says-media-outlets-defamed-conservative-economist-orders-them-to-pay-massive-settlement)
Nov 28, 2023
An Australian judge is ordering two media outlets to pay American economist Peter Schiff more than half a million dollars for defaming him.

It’s the latest fallout in a bizarre scandal (https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-government-can-destroy-anyone-how-an-irs-led-global-alliance-ruined-an-innocent-american-banker) in which the IRS and the governments of five other countries joined together to target Schiff, a frequent guest on conservative media, with the “biggest tax evasion investigation in the world.”

Despite poring over every detail of a bank he ran in Puerto Rico, authorities failed to come up with a single charge. But government agents apparently leaked the existence of the investigation to the New York Times and Australian media outlets The Age and 60 Minutes, both of which are owned by Australian media giant Nine. The journalists took Schiff’s advocacy for low-tax policies as evidence that he would break existing tax law.

The media reporting on the unfounded investigation led to a series of calamities for the bank, culminating in it being shuttered by a Puerto Rican regulator — with the IRS falsely taking credit for the closure and suggesting it was because of money laundering and tax evasion, even though its investigation substantiated neither of the charges.

Tax agents appeared to work closely with the media on that infamous press conference. The New York Times learned that the bank was being shuttered, purportedly because of the criminal probe dubbed “Operation Atlantis,” before Schiff did.

Officials may have violated the law by disclosing the existence of a grand jury to reporters. But with little recourse against the U.S. government, Schiff sued the journalists who seemed to be in cahoots with the agents in Australian court.

He named The Age, 60 Minutes, as well as two reporters — Charlotte Grieve and Nick McKenzie — who worked on an over-the-top video segment as well as an article. An Australian judge ruled that the television segment was defamatory, but the article was not.

The Australian journalists strongly suggested that Schiff was guilty of money laundering and tax evasion crimes, and that the case showed the need for more financial regulation. The story came as some Australian politicos were pushing a law that would give the government new powers to monitor people’s money — Schiff was made to be the poster-child villain.

Discovery in the lawsuit gave insight into the inner workings of major media outlets and suggested that they were determined to make Schiff’s bank, Euro Pacific, play such a narrative role. Interview notes and transcripts showed that their own sources often told them that Schiff’s bank was rigorously compliant. Then they used fast-cut editing to give the impression the witnesses said the opposite.

The Australian 60 Minutes segment suggested that Schiff’s Euro Pacific Bank opened accounts for money launderers, tax evaders, and criminals, and that it was attractive because it did little to vet its clients. But when Grieve asked one confidential source, a former customer, what opening an account was like, he said “it took weeks and weeks and weeks.”

“They were just so careful about making sure who they were dealing with, I’ve never come across anything like it,” the source said, according to interview notes disclosed in a court filing.

Another 60 Minutes source, an anonymous former bank employee, said “in terms of [anti-money laundering], they seemed to be strong. I personally didn’t experience a situation where something out of place was going on.” Another former employee told her that if a prospective customer told them they wanted to evade taxes, it was “good luck with that buddy, but you ain’t getting an account at this bank.”

The documents also show that Grieve attempted to open an account with a financial services company owned by Schiff, and she was rejected as part of the bank’s following of regulations.

The journalists secured an interview with Schiff by lying about their intentions, then took the existence of an investigation into the bank as proof of its guilt. “I’m putting to you that your bank has accounts for organized crime figures,” McKenzie told him.

“Then I have the basis of a lawsuit against you. So are you in fact telling me right now that you know for a fact that this crime syndicate is utilizing Euro Pacific Bank?” Schiff replied.

“I’m the journalist here. I’m asking the questions here, sir,” McKenzie said. “Why is it the tax authorities in Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, America, and the Netherlands all believe your bank is facilitating tax evasion and serious organized crime? … It’s a fact that organized crime, tax evaders, fraudsters are using your bank,” he added.

The 60 Minutes segment leaned heavily on a former IT employee, John Ogilvie, who was quoted disparaging the bank. But in the transcript of his full interview, it was clear his only grievance was an unrelated personality clash with a manager. “Money laundering, links to organized crime. Did you see any?” a journalist asked.

“I didn’t see any of that,” Ogilvie said.

The efforts to tie Schiff’s bank to criminals were so weak that the journalists resorted to hounding someone who was once questioned by police in Thailand, but was never arrested or charged with anything, and who later used an EUP account for prosaic expenses. That’s despite the customer telling them that EUP vetted him thoroughly and there was no reason they would have, or should have, known about his brief interaction with police in Thailand.

Last week, the media outlets filed for an emergency injunction to prevent the public from seeing what their interviewees actually said in full. But they withdrew it after the judge hinted that it would cause him to put on the record his view of their journalism ethics, and that it would not go well for them, a transcript showed.

Days after the judge entered the defamation damages order, McKenzie was given one of Australia’s top journalism awards, with the Walkley Foundation also naming a new investigative journalism award after him (https://www.crikey.com.au/2023/11/24/walkley-awards-2023-nine-masters-mckenzie-journalism/). Grieve also won a journalism award (https://www.citigroup.com/australia/awards/winners2022.html) for her coverage of Schiff’s bank.

In a statement to The Daily Wire, Nine Media was unrepentant, saying “60 Minutes accepts that the Federal Court found the program conveyed meanings that were not intended by the program, noting the barriers posed by the current state of defamation law in Australia to important public interest journalism. The Euro Pacific Bank was the target of the world’s largest tax evasion probe” and “was suspended in 2022 amid catastrophic regulatory failures.”

The Puerto Rican regulator said at a bizarre June 2022 press conference that the bank was being taken from Schiff and turned over to a trustee because it was “critically insolvent.” But weeks later, the trustee it appointed said that the opposite was true, writing “as of June 30, 2022, Euro Pacific had an excess cash position to cover all deposits.”

At the press conference, the regulator was forced to clarify that “The action is not based on claims of money laundering or other financial crimes”after the IRS’ Chief of Criminal Investigation, Jim Lee, flew to Puerto Rico to try to take credit and spin its failed investigation as a success.

“In January of 2020, each of the J5 countries participated in a global coordinated day of action to put a stop to the suspected facilitation of offshore tax evasion and money laundering by a suspected bank in Puerto Rico,” Lee said. “The operation from the J5 was dubbed Operation Atlantis, and the bank was Euro Pacific Bank.”

Despite having just said Schiff’s bank was being investigated, he hid behind ethics to refuse to clear Schiff’s name by saying the failed investigation was now closed. When a reporter asked “Is Peter Schiff being investigated?” Lee said. “I’m not at liberty to disclose who’s being investigated.”

In an interview, Schiff told The Daily Wire that the circus showed how the government works with apparatchik media to destroy those who question its ideology. He said the fact that Lee stated that his bank was the target of an investigation at the press conference bolstered the notion that it was IRS that previously illegally leaked the probe to the media.

“If the IRS didn’t leak it or even was mad that it was leaked, why did Jim Lee confirm it at a press conference?” he asked.

He said that criminal investigators were unable to find a single thing to charge him with, then decided to deal a death sentence to the bank through the media anyway. Many customers and business partners fled the bank because of the publicity.

“If it’s the subject of the largest tax investigation in history, then if they would have found the slightest infraction that normally they would have looked the other way, they would have brought that charge. But the bank was so clean that they couldn’t find a single thing,” he said. The Daily Wire asked the IRS if it could point to any convictions from Operation Atlantis–even of minor customers of the bank–and it declined to say.

Schiff said at the moment Puerto Rico shut the bank down, he could have refunded all of the bank’s customers on the spot, but that nearly 18 months after the government took over — purportedly to look out for those customers — no one has received a dime of the $65 million in deposits. That’s partly because the government of Portugal put a freeze on some assets, apparently because of the negative publicity and the ambiguous nature of the press conference.

Schiff said the IRS must be held accountable, and that if it would do this to someone with his resources, it could do it to anyone.

But the accountability from media outlets is a good first step, he said, and people should be shocked at how what they see on TV actually comes together.

“All the information at [Nine] had from their own investigation confirmed that our compliance was very strong, yet they ignored it,” he said. “There’s no pushback or questioning from the editors, it’s just putting it on the air.”

________________________________


An example of earlier modern western Stasi's fake news:

regulationasia.com: Global Tax Evasion Probe Targets Euro Capital Bank, Puerto Rico (https://www.regulationasia.com/global-tax-evasion-probe-targets-euro-capital-bank-puerto-rico/)

18th October 2020
The Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement (known as the J5) are reportedly investigating Euro Pacific Bank in San Juan, Puerto Rico for facilitating money laundering and tax evasion linked to serious organised crime.

The J5 comprises the five chiefs of tax agencies in Australia, the US, UK, Canada and the Netherlands. The taskforce was created in 2018 in response to the 2016 Panama Papers scandal, which exposed global tax authorities as flat-footed and reactive.

An investigation by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes, in collaboration with The New York Times, has revealed that Euro Pacific Bank is at the centre of a worldwide tax evasion investigation known as ‘Operation Atlantis’...

The case highlights a flaw in Australia’s AML regime, according to former Australian Federal Police officer John Chevis, who says the Australian government must pass new laws to force lawyers and accountants to report dodgy transactions to authorities...

On 24 January, the J5 agencies simultaneously launched actions to disrupt and collect evidence about Euro Capital, the first time in the history of tax enforcement that investigators around the world have coordinated in such a way, according to Will Day, deputy commission at the ATO (Australian Taxation Officer).

UK tax authorities are said to have arrested a Euro Pacific client and issued warrants to several banks dealing with Euro Pacific. In Canada, referral agents were approached and interviewed. In the US, the IRS intercepted Schiff and Anderson for questioning.

The J5 is also said to be hunting the lawyers, accountants and financial institutions linking taxpayers to Euro Capital Bank.

The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) has listed Euro Pacific as an ‘Australian Priority Organisation Target’, a designation that labels the bank as one of the most serious criminal threats to national security.

In an interview with 60 minutes (https://youtu.be/S333his4q0o), Euro Capital’s Peter Schiff denied his bank is facilitating any illegal activity, before walking out on the interview.

[keehah]

The modern western Stasi remains defiant regardless of nation's court ruling.
As seems a norm with internationalist's predatory abuse and gaslighting.

glj.com.au: Peter Schiff v Nine Network Australia (https://glj.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Peter-Schiff-v-Nine-Network-Australia.pdf)


[2023/11]
The statement released by Nine is as follows, and is
attributable to a Nine spokesperson:

"We stand by our journalists - two of Australia's most
accomplished journalists in Nick McKenzie and Charlotte Grieve
- and the articles, which were found not to be defamatory, will
remain online. 60 Minutes accepts that the Federal Court found
the program conveyed meanings that were not intended by the
program, noting the barriers posed by the current state of
defamation law in Australia to important public interest
journalism. The Euro Pacific Bank was the target of the world’s
largest tax evasion probe that resulted in many local investors
being fined and was a vitally important story to tell Australian
audiences. Schiff's bank was suspended in 2022 amid
catastrophic regulatory failures. Nine will continue to monitor
and report upon the tax evasion and money laundering
investigation led by the J5 – a taskforce of tax chiefs in
Australia, the US, UK, the Netherlands and Canada." - Nine
spokesperson
smh.com.au: The Age and Sydney Morning Herald business journalists recognised at Citi journalism awards (https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/the-age-and-sydney-morning-herald-business-journalists-recognised-at-citi-journalism-awards-20210902-p58o9r.html)

September 2, 2021
Business journalists from The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald have been recognised at the 2021 Citi Journalism Awards for Excellence.

The awards acknowledge the critical role media plays in the Australian and New Zealand business landscape and encourage excellence in business and finance reporting in Australia and New Zealand...

Charlotte Grieve was awarded the young business journalist of the year award for her series Operation Atlantis in collaboration with award-winning investigative journalist Nick McKenzie and 60 Minutes’s Joel Tozer.

The series illuminated the way Westpac, the Perth Mint and hundreds of Australians were caught up in a global tax evasion probe into a Puerto Rican bank.

'If she won an award, imagine the other journalists in Australia'

[Amanda]

fwiw- I don't know much about that case (didn't even know it was going on), but one day I randomly listened to a Schiff video where he talked about his bank. Apparently, he was a FULL-RESERVE bank, so none of that BS normal banks do w/fractional reserves and then no reserves. And then he got targeted by a number of govts.

[keehah]

Not actualy a 'that case'. To get to this settlement Peter has had to win a half dozen or so different court events in Australia. He talks about the entire Zursetung event (my words) against him in his latest podcast. He also says as part of the settlement the corporate fake news journalism has to pay his legal costs of ~$700 000.

As part of disclosure he got access to and posted the original unedited 60 minutes interview: Youtube: Peter Schiff Ambushed by Age Reporter Nick McKenzie on Sept. 2nd 2020 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxqhEvbOpvM)

He talks of and reviews his western corporate fake news survival saga in his latest podcast starting at 10 minutes: Youtube: I Won My Defamation Lawsuit in Australia - Ep 933 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O496NGmwDjQ&t=18s)

In other news this week...

smh.com.au: Nick McKenzie wins special Walkley honour as Herald talent nab awards (https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/nick-mckenzie-wins-special-walkley-honour-as-herald-talent-nab-awards-20231122-p5em0t.html)

November 23, 2023
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age investigative journalist Nick McKenzie has been awarded the special Walkley Honour for Media Freedom, along with investigative journalist Chris Masters, as part of the prestigious annual journalism awards.

The pair received the honour at the 68th Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism held in Sydney on Thursday night