Exclusive: Republicans, NRA secretly pressure Citigroup to back off restrictions on gun sellers
Senate Democrats, gun safety groups investigate apparent NRA campaign to undo Citogroup’s gun-sales rules
AMANDA MARCOTTE
JUNE 18, 2018 10:00AM (UTC)
After the February school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that ended the lives of 17 people, a number of corporations took high-profile measures to reduce their own participation in the underregulated gun market. Dick's Sporting Goods stopped selling assault weapons. Both MetLife and Delta Air Lines ended discount programs for NRA members. Citigroup announced new restrictions on its business banking customers in March. For clients who sell guns, Citigroup requires background checks on all sales, a ban on bump stocks and high-capacity magazines, and a ban on sales to those under 21.
There's nothing unusual about a bank placing these kinds of restrictions on clients, but it now appears Citigroup has been subject to retaliation from Republicans and pro-gun activists. Gun safety advocates are trying to find out exactly how much pressure the National Rifle Association has exerted on Republicans to bully Citigroup out of sticking by its new gun-sale policies.
In early May, Robert Schmidt of Bloomberg Businessweek reported claims that a Republican member of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Michael Piwowar, had attempted to intimidate Citigroup officials over their gun control policies during an April meeting about derivatives regulation.
Schmidt describes Piwowar as "glowering and speaking emphatically," and reports that people who attended the meeting heard Piwowar say that "he knew Citigroup wanted the SEC to ease regulations on derivatives and proprietary trading, and suggested they might have trouble finding the votes on the Republican-led commission," which "some of the executives took as a thinly veiled threat."
As Salon exclusively learned, Everytown for Gun Safety plans to file a Freedom of Information Act on Monday to determine whether the NRA influenced Piwowar's behavior towards Citigroup. Everytown's FOIA request asks for any communications between members of the SEC and the NRA, the NRA's lobbying arm or the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
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https://www.salon.com/2018/06/18/exclusive-republicans-nra-secretly-pressure-citigroup-to-back-off-restrictions-on-gun-sellers/
