Roger Williams: DOJ’s Operation Choke Point Findings ‘Unsurprising’

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Roger Williams (R-Texas), a small business owner and member of the Financial Services Committee, today released the following statement after an internal Justice Department investigation cleared its own lawyers of unfairly targeting payday lenders in its program Operation Chokepoint:

"It is unsurprising to me that the department charged in these allegations would clear itself of a program Congress knows to be at best unethical and at worst illegal," said Williams. "Today, we know for a fact that banks are closing their customers' accounts under a directive by the U.S. Department of Justice without any appeals process. Operation Choke Point has wrongfully ripped the livelihoods of hardworking American business owners out from under them. It's time this Congress uses its power of the purse to restore accountability and rein in an executive branch that has time and again gone around Congress and abused its power."

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