to 1985, wrote a scathing opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal entitled "Don't Like an Industry? Send a Message to Its Bankers: With Operation Choke Point, the Justice Department's targets have included vendors of firearms and fireworks" stating that he believed that the agency acted in bad faith. On March 24, 2015, a hearing was held before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Financial Services Committee. Subcommittee chair Sean P. Duffy said at the outset, "I fear that activists at the DOJ and the FDIC are abusing their power and authority and are going after legal businesses and, in effect, they are weaponizing government to meet their ideological beliefs." In 2018, Tho Bishop of the Ludwig von Mises Institute published an article noting the strong objections of Native American leaders to Choke Point, due to claims that its effects could be economically devastating to tribal payday loan businesses. Bishop characterized CFPB head Elizabeth Warren's defense of Choke Point as heavy-handed and furthermore as "ideological imperialism" when applied to sovereign tribal territory. Operation Choke Point has been accused of being harmful to sex workers. Many sex workers have reported having their accounts shut down after years of having accounts. This led to significant financial hardship and is considered a form of discrimination. Federal investigations The FDIC and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have launched investigations into the operation. The FDIC's inspector general, Fred Gibson, said he would review the conduct of agency personnel to find if the "actions and policies of the FDIC were consistent with applicable laws, regulations and policy", as well as the regulator's mission. Gibson said he would investigate allegations that FDIC General Counsel Richard Osterman provided false testimony to Congress earlier this year when discussing his organization's activities. Osterman was testifying to the House of Representatives member when he rejected assertions that the FDIC wanted to cut off legitimate businesses' use of the financial system. Conclusion On January 29, 2015, the FDIC issued a Financial Institution Letter that states "The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) issued a Financial Institution Letter today encouraging supervised institutions to take a risk-based approach in assessing individual customer relationships, rather than declining to provide banking services to entire categories of customers without regard to the risks presented by an individual customer or the financial institution's ability to manage the risk." The Washington Times says this letter "effectively ends