“There should be nothing partisan about revealing the truth.”
~ Senator Ron Johnson, Chairman of Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
In January, Senator Ron Johnson moved from ranking member to chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations within the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (a committee that he chaired from 2015-2021). As chairman, he will continue to steer the subcommittee’s ongoing investigation of Zelle, the peer-to-peer payments service that the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has scathingly called “a gold mine for fraudsters.”
Zelle is operated by the Arizona-based financial technology company Early Warning Services (EWS), but its owners are seven of the largest banks in the U.S. Three of those banks—JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo—handle nearly three out of four Zelle transactions. Last December, CFPB announced that it was suing the three banks “for allowing fraud to fester on Zelle.”
In accepting the chairmanship, Sen. Johnson noted his plans to build on the subcommittee’s “unparalleled” investigatory record and “reputation for conducting thorough oversight and exposing wrongdoing.” The subcommittee’s sweeping mandate includes investigating: the efficiency and economy of government operations; compliance—and noncompliance—with rules, regulations, and laws; and lawlessness in areas such as syndicated crime, investment fraud, commodity and security fraud, computer fraud, and offshore operations. Sen. Johnson’s service on three other committees (Budget, Aging, and Finance) and three Finance subcommittees (International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness; Health Care; and Taxation and IRS Oversight) no doubt has strengthened his appreciation of the role of congressional oversight.
This is not the first time that Sen. Johnson has earned our appreciation as Hero of the Week. In his 15 years as a Wisconsin senator, he has stood out in his willingness to speak up on critical topics about which other senators remain ignobly silent. This includes repeatedly calling attention to myocarditis and other injuries caused by Covid shots, warning of the dangers of World Health Organization “dictatorship,” and questioning climate change alarmism.
On Day One of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation hearings as HHS Secretary, Johnson maturely countered Democratic senators’ vitriolic badgering:
“Thank you for your decades-long advocacy for a clean environment, for children’s health. I can’t say as I’m surprised by the hostility on the other side [but] I’m highly disappointed in it…. [W]hen you called me up and you were contemplating setting your political differences aside, joining forces with President Trump in an area of agreement addressing chronic illness, trying to find the root cause of all these problems facing this nation, my first response was, ‘Bobby, this is an answer to my prayers.’ […] Mr. Kennedy, I think I have come to know what’s in your heart…the personal and political price you’ve paid for this decision. I want to say publicly, I thank you for that…. Can’t we come together as a nation and do this?”
Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and EWS violated federal law, alleges the CFPB, by leaving the door open to scammers, letting repeat offenders “hop between banks,” ignoring the red flags raised by hundreds of thousands of fraud complaints, and abandoning consumers after fraud occurred. An EWS spokesperson dismissed the estimated $1 billion in annual fraud on Zelle as “just 0.1%” of transactions, apparently insensitive to the impact of the stolen billion on the finances of scammed individuals and households. We wonder how they would describe $1 billion if the leadership of Zelle had to pay it back out of their own pockets, just like the victims.
FInancial fraud is a serious and growing problem, robbing many people of savings also being drained by inflation. We hope Senator Johnson will continue to help reverse the trends in financial fraud as he has been doing in health care fraud. After all, they are both bankrupting record numbers of Americans.
Related:
Ron Johnson, U.S. Senator for Wisconsin
Sen. Johnson Named Chairman of Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
Zelle Faces Senate Probe on Fraud
CFPB Sues JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo for Allowing Fraud to Fester on Zelle
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Testifies at Senate Confirmation Hearing for HHS Secretary | Day 1 (Sen. Johnson’s remarks starting at timestamp 1:44:21)
Related at the Solari Report:
Hero of the Week: November 20, 2023: Senator Ron Johnson
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