Warren demands DOJ probe of Bank of America

More than $1.2 billion in penalties landed on Bank of America this month, but Senator Elizabeth Warren wants the Justice Department to look deeper. The Massachusetts Democrat sent a letter to Attorney General Todd Blanche on Tuesday, urging the department to open a criminal investigation into the bank and its executives.

Warren, the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, called the civil penalties a "slap on the wrist." She argued that the bank's admitted willful violations of federal anti-money-laundering laws warrant more than a civil fine. In the letter, she stated, "The documented violations by Bank of America allowed illicit actors to move billions through the U.S. financial system."

The senator gave the Justice Department until Nov. 12 to respond. She asked the department to confirm whether it has already investigated the conduct or if it plans to do so. Bank of America and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the letter.

The push for criminal scrutiny comes just over two weeks after Treasury regulators announced a major settlement. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network accused the nation's second-largest bank of years of serious compliance failures. As part of the settlement, Bank of America admitted it willfully violated the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to maintain an adequate anti-money-laundering program.

Regulators found that the bank failed to report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions in a timely manner. More than $1 billion of that amount involved national-security risks, including activity linked to Chinese money-laundering networks and transactions tied to the U.S. southwest border. Treasury officials said the bank at times prioritized its revenues over compliance and relied on law enforcement referrals rather than its own detection systems.

The settlement included a record $750 million fine from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Warren contends that civil fines have become the cost of doing business on Wall Street. She pointed to federal law that permits criminal penalties for willful violations of the Bank Secrecy Act.

Bank of America said it has invested billions of dollars in compliance and is "far along" in addressing the problems. The bank has been operating under a 2024 cease-and-desist order regarding its anti-money-laundering controls. Regulators noted this month that the bank had not made sufficient progress in fixing some of those deficiencies.