Oct. 6, 2025

Financial Tyranny: How Obama and Biden Weaponized Banking Against Conservatives

What would you do if your bank account closed tomorrow morning with no warning? Just a letter: "We're terminating your account in 30 days." You can't process payroll. You can't accept credit cards. You can't get a mortgage. Your life is financially paralyzed—and you've committed no crime.

Welcome to debanking: when banks close your accounts or deny you services not because you've done anything illegal, but because someone in power doesn't like your politics, religion, or business.

This isn't a conspiracy theory. We've got House Oversight investigations, bank executive whistleblowers, and documented evidence showing how the Obama and Biden administrations turned America's financial system into a political weapon.

When They Debanked a State Auditor

Andrew Sorrell is the Alabama State Auditor—an elected official with political connections. He also owns Gold Guns and Guitars Gun Store. One day, his credit card processor sent a letter: in 30 days, we're closing your account. No explanation. His business processed $1.5 million annually through cards.

Then his insurance company dropped him. His broker told him, "This is happening to all gun stores."

"I'm a victim of political debanking," Andrew told Fox News. "I didn't even realize it."

Here's the disturbing part: if they'll do this to a state auditor, what chance do regular citizens have? Most victims don't realize they're being targeted. They think the bank made a business decision. They don't know federal regulators are behind it.

Operation Choke Point: Obama's Financial War

The story goes back to 2013 when Obama's DOJ launched Operation Choke Point. The name tells you everything—they wanted to choke out legal businesses the administration didn't like.

They couldn't get Congress to ban these industries, so they pressured banks using federal regulators.

House Oversight found the smoking gun: the FDIC created a list of 30 industries labeled "high-risk" and told banks to avoid them. Gun dealers, ammunition sellers, payday lenders, tobacco companies, even coin dealers. These weren't illegal businesses—they were constitutionally protected industries that liberals hated.

Representative Darrell Issa said the DOJ was "conscripting banks to do their bidding." The government was drafting private banks as weapons in their political war.

Real Victims, Real Damage

Mike Schuetz owned Hawkins Guns LLC in Wisconsin. A former state probation officer and union member—a working-class guy. His credit union called and said, "You need to close your account." Why? "We do not service businesses that deal in guns."

The U.S. Consumer Coalition discovered federal examiners had pressured the credit union. Mike had audio recordings proving it.

"This is a backdoor way to infringe on Second Amendment rights," Mike told Breitbart News.

This happened nationwide:

In Miami
In Henderson
In Phoenix
In April 2013, Bank of America froze American Spirit Arms' assets in Arizona—just locked them out of their own money

Operation Choke Point supposedly ended when Trump took office in 2017. But here's what didn't happen: nobody got fired. They didn't reform the regulations that made it possible. They just told agencies to stop.

So those bureaucrats kept their positions. They waited. And when Biden got inaugurated in January 2021, they fired it right back up.

Operation Choke Point 2.0: Biden's Expanded War

Biden takes office and the same agencies launched Operation Choke Point 2.0—this time with massively expanded targets.

Biden stacked financial regulatory positions with people who hate cryptocurrency. They wanted to kill crypto before it could challenge government-controlled currency.

Former Senator Pat Toomey, who served 12 years on the Senate Banking Committee, wrote in Fox News about crypto companies being systematically destroyed. Bank accounts shut down. Banks couldn't process payrolls. Employees were personally debanked—some couldn't get mortgages or checking accounts.

Chris Lane, former CTO of Silvergate Bank, watched regulators deliberately destroy his bank. Documents showed Biden's people instructed banks to "pause all crypto activity." He called it "being shot in the back by his own government."

Marc Andreessen revealed on Joe Rogan that he personally knew 30-plus tech founders debanked for political reasons.

Targeting Conservatives After January 6th

After January 6th, banks participated in government surveillance targeting conservatives. Regulators suggested banks flag people:

Shopping at Cabela's or Bass Pro Shop
Making Venmo payments with terms like "Trump" or "MAGA"

If you bought fishing gear at Cabela's, you might be flagged as a domestic extremist.

House Oversight Chairman James Comer confirmed he'd seen numerous instances of conservatives being debanked.

Christian Organizations Under Attack

Bank of America shut down Indigenous Advanced Ministries, a charity helping at-risk children and sex trafficking victims in Uganda. They claimed it was because they "don't serve businesses outside the US"—but that's false. The real reason? Christian beliefs.

They also closed a Memphis church's account for donating to this ministry.

Fifteen state financial officers sent Bank of America a scathing letter.

They Even Debanked Trump

The most stunning victim? President Trump himself.

In August, Trump revealed he'd been debanked by multiple major institutions—despite being a Forbes billionaire with excellent credit.

According to the New York Post and Daily Wire, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America refused business with Trump after January 6. One JPMorgan executive said regulators "put the fear of God in them" about doing business with Trump.

Melania wrote about being debanked in her memoir. Donald Trump Jr. got the same treatment.

If they can debank a billionaire former president with unlimited legal resources and a massive platform, they can debank anyone.

The "Reputational Risk" Scam

This entire system runs on one vague phrase: reputational risk.

Bank regulators told institutions to assess "reputational risk" when deciding clients. Sounds reasonable—avoid customers who might damage your reputation.

But reputational risk was never defined in law. It became a catch-all for political discrimination:

A gun store might get CNN coverage? Reputational risk.
Conservative activists might tweet something? Reputational risk.
Crypto challenges government currency? Reputational risk.

A senior banking executive told Fox News anonymously: "When your regulator gives you a suggestion, it's not a suggestion, it's an order."

Former Senator Toomey explained: "Banks compete ruthlessly for customers. Debanking is almost entirely driven by vague regulation or regulatory abuse."

Trump's Executive Order

Trump learned from his first-term mistakes. On August 7th, 2025, Trump signed an executive order guaranteeing fair banking for all Americans:

Bans "reputational risk" as grounds for denying services
Regulators have 180 days to scrub it from all guidance
Requires reviews of banks for past politicized debanking with real consequences
The SBA must make lenders identify victims and reinstate them by December 5th
Regulators must find religious discrimination cases and send them to the Attorney General

Three weeks ago, the Office of the Comptroller announced implementation. SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler says, "Under President Trump, whose own family was debanked, those days are over."

Why It Took So Long

This is great—but I have to ask: why did it take until August 2025? Trump was inaugurated in January. That's seven months while Operation Choke Point 2.0 continued destroying businesses.

And why didn't Trump do this in his first term? Operation Choke Point ran 2013-2017. His administration supposedly ended it, but never banned the practice or reformed regulations—just told agencies to stop with zero enforcement.

This reactive approach is a genuine weakness in our movement.

Why You Should Care

Some might think, "I'm not a gun dealer. I don't own a crypto company. Why should I care?"

Let me tell you exactly why:

Because today it's gun stores and outspoken conservatives getting debanked. Tomorrow it could be:

Your church if your pastor gives a sermon that offends the wrong people
Your kids' Christian school
The crisis pregnancy center in your town
You personally if you donate to the wrong political candidate

This is fundamentally about whether we still have the rule of law in America. Whether American citizens can be financially destroyed for exercising their constitutional rights to free speech, religious freedom, and the Second Amendment.

The political left figured out something Republicans have been too slow to understand: if you can't beat your opponents at the ballot box, you can still crush them by capturing control of the administrative state and weaponizing federal agencies against them.

The Path Forward

Now that Trump's executive order has given people protection and political cover, victims are finally feeling safe enough to tell their stories publicly. Senator Tim Scott held hearings in January. He brought in real business owners who got crushed—Nathan McCauley from Anchorage Digital, Evan Hafer who founded Black Rifle Coffee Company.

Representative Andy Barr from Kentucky is now working on legislation to turn Trump's executive order into permanent federal law—which is smart. Executive orders can be undone. Laws are much harder to reverse.

But we need more than this executive order. We need:

Comprehensive civil service reform to fire corrupt bureaucrats
To strip agencies of regulatory power enabling this abuse
Proactive defense of our freedoms, not just reactive responses

Holding Our Side Accountable

Republicans controlled Congress and the White House from 2017 through 2019. Why wasn't this fixed then?

These are uncomfortable questions we need to ask. Democrats weaponized the system. Republicans failed to dismantle it when they had the chance.

We must demand better from our own side. Otherwise, we'll keep getting reactive, insufficient responses.

The left plays the long game, building institutional power over decades. We need to match that—not just defending, but building our own institutional power.

Stay informed, Patriots. Stay engaged. Hold elected officials accountable.

This is John O'Connor, holding the line, unapologetically.

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