Is Barack Obama using “Operation Choke Point” in an attempt to force gun dealers out of business?

 Operation Choke Point is not a new story, I first wrote about it back in January and this is what I wrote in that post:

  According to this article Darrell Issa might be preparing to launch an investigation into the Obama regime’s ‘Operation Choke Point,’ claiming the regime might be using this policy to shakedown and intimidate banks.

Darrell Issa sent a letter to Eric Holder and here is part of what it said:

In the letter, Issa and Jordan stated, “[t]he [House Oversight and Government Reform] Committee is concerned that both the goal and mechanisms of Operation Choke Point may constitute a serious mismanagement and abuse of the Department’s FIRREA [Financial Institution Reform and Recovery Act of 1989] authority.”

“There is evidence,” they wrote, “that the true goal of Operation Choke Point is to target online lenders and the payment processors who serve them.” They stated further, “[t]he extraordinary breadth of the Department’s dragnet prompts concern that the true goal of Operation Choke Point is not to cut off actual fraudsters’ access to the financial system, but rather to eliminate legal financial services to which the Department objects.”

Issa and Jordan also told Attorney General Holder in the letter, “[i]t appears the Department has indiscriminately targeted an access point to the financial system that countless legitimate merchants rely upon simply because it is ‘faster’ than targeting the actual perpetrators of fraud.” The Department of Justice, they wrote, is “needlessly punishing good actors with the bad, and threatening legitimate merchants.”

The Injustice Department has not yet responded. Here is more from the article:

Breitbart News broke the story Wednesday morning that the Obama administration launched ‘Operation Choke Point’ out of the Department of Justice in 2013 for the express purpose of destroying three key sectors of the private lending industry: third party payment processors (“TPPPs”), online lenders, and payday lenders.

  Stay tuned, this could get interesting.

    Now, back to today. Operation Choke Point is back in the news with a link on Drudge which just might show us what the true intention of Operation Check Point really is, and yes, it is getting interesting. Here is more:

Gun retailers say the Obama administration is trying to put them out of business with regulations and investigations that bypass Congress and choke off their lines of credit, freeze their assets and prohibit online sales.

Since 2011, regulators have increased scrutiny on banks’ customers. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in 2011 urged banks to better manage the risks of their merchant customers who employ payment processors, such as PayPal, for credit card transactions. The FDIC listed gun retailers as “high risk” along with porn stores and drug paraphernalia shops.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department has launched Operation Choke Point, a credit card fraud probe focusing on banks and payment processors. The threat of enforcement has prompted some banks to cut ties with online gun retailers, even if those companies have valid licenses and good credit histories.

“This administration has very clearly told the banking industry which customers they feel represent ‘reputational risk’ to do business with,” said Peter Weinstock, a lawyer at Hunton & Williams LLP. “So financial institutions are reacting to this extraordinary enforcement arsenal by being ultra-conservative in who they do business with: Any companies that engage in any margin of risk as defined by this administration are being dropped.”

  The Injustice Department is denying this is the case but after the Congress failed to pass cap and trade legislation Barack Obama famously quipped “there is more than one way to skin a cat.” The implication was clear; he intended to do through the EPA what the Congress failed to do through legislation. Now that the Congress has failed to pass gun control it appears as if Barack Obama is seeking alternative means to get what he wants on gun control.