@business@chafkin@svaneksmith This grocery store is state subsidized, getting low interest loans/financing to unfairly compete with privately owned stores, then lowering its prices below cost. Socialism at its finest.
My former boss @PeterSchiff had his Puerto Rico bank shut down in 2022. The IRS told the world it was a money-laundering haven.
More likely: The Biden IRS disliked Peter's constant criticism.
Peter FOIA'ed their communications. Spoiler: Their investigation turned up no criminal behavior, but they charged him anyway.
Worse, the IRS refuses to turn over all of the FOIA'ed materials, despite a federal judge mandating their release.
The story is crazy. But for me the craziest part of all is that Peter's bank, as a policy, was fully solvent, keeping 100 percent of clients' assets. By contrast, the standard U.S. bank historically was only required to keep 3 percent of its clients' deposits (the rest being loaned out at interest) but since Covid, the minimum reserve rate was dropped all the way to zero.
The whole point of a bank is to keep your money safe. What today we call banks do the opposite: As soon as you give them your money, they give it someone else. Peter tried providing the world an actual, honest bank — & the IRS sicc'ed Puerto Rican banking authorities on him, forcing its closure. (Knowing the nightmare of U.S. financial regulations, Peter's bank actually excluded Americans as clients; as the IRS had no authority, the FOIA'ed emails show them merely telling the Puerto Rican financial authorities [OCIF] what to do.)
This is the definition of government being weaponized against American citizens, exactly the thing the Constitution was designed to protect against.
Yet despite the feds being caught red handed, breaking the law in service of their own political agenda, illegally covering up their crimes, there's been zero accountability. Nobody fired, nobody reassigned, not even an apology to Peter or his thousands of de-banked clients.
Many of the named officials still work at the IRS. If the DoJ cares to show the American people they care about ending the weaponization of government, they'll take action. Until then, we should assume any of us can be targeted for the crime of offending someone in Washington.