Former President Obama Howls About ‘Cancel Culture’ He Started

Opinion
By Joe Bartozzi

Former President Barack Obama has a suspiciously – and conveniently – short memory. He’s crying foul over Disney’s and Nexstar’s decisions to suspend Jimmy Kimmel for the provably false and inflammatory lies he spread about the late Charlie Kirk. Former President Obama, though, ignores the fact that he brought “cancel culture” – with the full weight of the U.S. government – against the firearm industry.

It even had its own name: Operation Choke Point.

While he might ignore it, those in the firearm industry can’t – and won’t – forget. Nearly 15 years later, firearm and ammunition manufacturers, distributors and retailers are still reeling and cleaning up the mess from the illegal scheme to debank and ostracize a Constitutionally protected industry. Former President Obama for short term political gain attempted to cancel an entire industry that provides the means for millions of law-abiding Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights.

Illegal ‘Cancel’ Scheme

Under the Obama administration, Operation Choke Point was launched by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Department of Justice (DOJ). The goal was to coerce banks, third-party payment processors and other financial institutions into closing or denying business accounts of clients that the FDIC classified as “high risk” or a “reputational risk” for the financial institution. According to a U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform investigation, the FDIC “equated legitimate and regulated activities such as coin dealers and firearms and ammunition sales with inherently pernicious or patently illegal activities such as Ponzi schemes, debt consolidation scams, and drug paraphernalia.”

The FDIC included federally licensed firearm retailers and other companies in the firearm and ammunition industry – some of the most heavily regulated businesses in the country – on this list of “too risky” businesses without any evidence or justification. In fact, in its guidance to banks, the agency “justified itself by claiming that the categories had been previously ‘noted by the FDIC.’”

Working with the DOJ, the FDIC guidance targeting the law-abiding firearm industry and others was included in DOJ subpoenas. This sent a clear message to banks that they were to stop providing banking and financial services to those clients or risk a federal investigation.

Discrimination Goes Private

Operation Choke Point only stopped when Congress revealed the illegal overreach of the Obama administration to pick winners and losers by manipulating banks to starve firearm businesses of essential banking services. NSSF praised then-U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.) for his dogged determination to end it with  the Financial Institution Customer Protection Act, H.R. 2706, which he sponsored. Provisions were included in an appropriations bill that ended funding for Operation Choke Point.

The discrimination didn’t end, however. It just went private. It was done with a wink-and-a-nod by unaccountable banking executives in Wall Street ivory tower boardrooms under the guise of “reputational risk.” It became so egregious that Bank of America was caught red-handed voluntarily giving over the private banking information of its customers who made purchases at sporting goods retailers that sold firearms and ammunition to the Biden administration. Banks – including global corporate banks like Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo – iced out firearm and ammunition businesses.

Cancel culture was weaponized against a politically disfavored industry.

It didn’t begin to end until President Donald Trump returned to The White House. His Executive Order Guaranteeing Free and Fair Banking for All Americans put big banks on notice that the cancel culture war started by former President Obama was over. That Order enforces a firearm industry priority to end banking discrimination against individuals and entities based on political beliefs.

Change Coming, Albeit Slowly

Slowly, corporate banks are showing signs that they see the Trump administration means business. Citigroup announced a policy reversal in June. That banking giant said it would no longer discriminate against firearm-related businesses after denying services for over a decade. It also came after Citigroup ran afoul of the NSSF-supported Texas Firearm Industry Nondiscrimination (FIND) Act that barred the bank from competing to underwrite $3.4 billion in state bonds.

Just last week, J.P. Morgan Wealth Investments quickly reversed themselves after initially denying services to Silencer Central’s Brandon Maddox. Maddox, a member of NSSF’s Board of Governors, shared that information and NSSF exposed the continuing discrimination, even as the Treasury Department’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) announced actions to depoliticize the federal banking system. The OCC is the watchdog of the banks to ensure they’re playing by the rules.

None of this, however, would be necessary had former President Obama not launched his cancel culture against the firearm industry with the illegal Operation Choke Point. Banking discrimination was – and is – a purely political weapon that was and still is wielded against members of the firearm industry.

Kimmel’s suspension was a business decision by ABC. After all, they broadcast on publicly owned frequencies that are regulated. That decision is called accountability. No one is telling Kimmel he can’t spread his hateful lies with his shrinking audience. The network carrying his show is saying they don’t want to be a part of it. Former President Obama can feign frustration over cancel culture all he wants, but Kimmel’s suspension is a poor cancel culture example –  and he should know – he weaponized cancel culture in the first place.

In fact, the former president’s hypocrisy was on full display and was obvious to anyone paying attention.

About The National Shooting Sports Foundation

NSSF is the trade association for the firearm industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of thousands of manufacturers, distributors, firearm retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen’s organizations, and publishers nationwide. For more information, visit nssf.org

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