Do not be distracted by the low-hanging fruit
Congress needs to act to criminalize politically motivated de-banking. The Left must not be allowed to weaponize banks against conservatives.
Before I start: Jeffrey Epstein was an evil man. I am glad he is dead, though it would have been much better if he had been executed over a decade earlier. I am not sympathizing with him at all.
But with the news that the former attorney general in the Virgin Islands was looking to go after JPMorgan Chase for allowing Epstein to maintain accounts and use the bank, we need to look ahead at the implications of this action. The ultimate target is not Epstein. The target is conservative citizens, conservative leaders and conservative organizations. She was setting a precedent to go after banks who provide service to people she does not like. Then banks can be intimidated into canceling accounts of "undesirable" people.
Epstein is the low-hanging fruit. If Chase can be punished for providing services to him, banks will be targeted for providing services - knowingly or not - to other criminals. Then it will be "hate groups," and then it will be expanded to conservatives generally.
Do you think I am being paranoid? I am not. This very thing is happening right now. It happened to Mike Lindell, Kanye West and the National Committee for Religious Freedom. Just like the Left weaponized Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to censor opinions they did not like, Leftists are now preparing a much broader campaign to erase conservatives from society by denying us even the ability to use a bank.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spilled the beans a few years ago when she proposed going after banks that fund oil pipelines. The goal is to weaponize the banking industry to financially blackmail political opponents. AOC is too honest for her own good, because she exposed the end goal that other Leftists are trying to hide.
What we need is federal legislation to criminalize de-banking. Banks get all kinds of benefits from the government, including membership in the FDIC and billions of dollars in bailouts, so the "private company" argument does not apply here. Banking has not been a truly private industry for many decades now. If banks want government benefits, they should not be permitted to discriminate against anyone absent an actual criminal conviction for a serious crime.