Marc Andreessen, cofounder and general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, said the Biden-Harris administration has “debanked” upwards of 30 tech startup companies through exhibiting raw administrative power to suppress their political opponents.
Andreessen made the remarks on episode 2234 of The Joe Rogan Experience, explaining how “debanking” of “disfavored” entities began approximately 15 years ago under the Obama administration called Operation Choke Point.
Launched in 2013, Operation Choke Point was created by the U.S. Department of Justice to “choke out” companies the Administration considered a “high risk” or otherwise objectionable, despite the fact that they were legal businesses – an initiative of which the DOJ lacked “adequate legal authority,” a report by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform declared.
Andreessen explained that Operation Choke Point initially targeted marijuana businesses, escort services, and gun shops, however, has evolved into “Operation Choke Point 2.0” under the Biden-Harris administration to target their political opponents and other businesses, including tech startups and cryptocurrency startups.
“Choke Point 2.0 is primarily against their political enemies and then to their disfavored tech startups. It’s hit the tech world hard. We’ve had 30 founders debanked in the last four years,” Andreessen said.
Andreessen said the initiative is an execution of “raw administrative power” of which can not be challenged by those affected.
“We can’t live in a world where somebody starts a company that’s a completely legal thing and then they literally get sanctioned and embargoed by the United States government through a completely unaccountable [process]. There’s no due process. None of this is written down. There’s no rules. There’s no court. There’s no decision process. There’s no appeal,” Andreessen said.
“It’s just raw power. It’s just raw administrative power. It’s the government or politicians deciding that things are going to be a certain way and then they just apply pressure until they get it,” Andreessen added.
Andreessen said the initiative by the Obama and Biden-Harris administrations is a reason for his support for President-elect Donald Trump, who has vowed to “dismantle” the deep state and “end the ongoing weaponization of the justice system that targets its political enemies simply because of their political or religious beliefs.”
Watch Andreessen’s full appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience:
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
