In an August 16, 2017, letter to the Judiciary Committee, the Department of Justice stated that “All of the Department’s bank investigations conducted as part of Operation Chokepoint are not over, the initiative is no longer in effect, and it will not be undertaken again.”

Operation Chokepoint was the brainchild of the Department of Justice to curtail legal but disfavored businesses by working through banking regulators to pressure financial institutions to close customer relationships because of potential reputational risk.  Operation Chokepoint is currently the target of a lawsuit pending in D.C. federal district court in which several payday lenders allege that certain actions taken by regulators as part of Operation Chokepoint violated their due process rights.  (The action was filed against the OCC as well as the Fed and FDIC.)