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The Trump administration has ended Operation Choke Point, the anti-fraud initiative started under the Obama administration that many Republicans argued was used to target gun retailers and other businesses that Democrats found objectionable.

Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd told GOP representatives in a Wednesday letter that the long-running program had ended, bringing a conclusion to a chapter in the Obama years that long provoked and angered conservatives who saw Choke Point as an extra-legal crackdown on politically disfavored groups.

"All of the department's bank investigations conducted as part of Operation Chokepoint are now over, the initiative is no longer in effect, and it will not be undertaken again," Boyd wrote in the letter.

The letter was addressed to Jeb Hensarling and Bob Goodlatte, the chairmen of the Financial Services and Judiciary Committees, respectively. Their staffs confirmed they received the letter.

The Republicans had written last week to Attorney General Jeff Sessions for confirmation that the program was over so that businesses that might be targeted could breathe easy.

After the Obama Justice Department began Operation Choke Point in 2013, Hensarling and other conservatives accused them of denying the constitutional rights of businesses like gun dealers and payday lenders by targeting them for scrutiny under the program, cutting off their access to the banking system under the guise of investigating fraud and money laundering.

The GOP said companies were still wary that they could lose access to the banking system, and needed clear guidance from the Trump administration that the program wouldn't be continued.

In a joint statement, Hensarling, Goodlatte, and Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri and Darrell Issa said that the Trump administration has "restored the Department's responsibility to pursue lawbreakers, not legitimate businesses."

The also said that the "Obama Administration created this ill-advised program to suffocate legitimate businesses to which it was ideologically opposed by intimidating financial institutions into denying banking services to those businesses."

Not that the government is totally done with Choke Point. Boyd said the department would follow up on investigations that stemmed from the original program.

Nevertheless, Boyd called Choke Point a "misguided initiative" and said that the administration shares the Republicans' concerns about lawful businesses being scrutinized just because their activities are disfavored. He also noted, though, that some of the responses to subpoenas originally issued as part of the program uncovered criminal activity.

Separately, Luetkemeyer called for the federal banking regulators tasked with cracking down on banks thought to be facilitating crimes to also definitively state that they would stop doing so. Luetkemeyer, who chairs the financial institutions subcomittee, also called for Congress to pass legislation he's authored to prevent the administration from undertaking similar programs in the future.

Some banks have still experienced bank examiners taking issue with certain customers in recent months, said Camden R. Webb, the chair of the firearms industry practice group at the law firm Williams Mullen. The Justice Department's letter was a "great step in the right direction for the gun industry and other industries," Webb said, but businesses have to be realistic that "we don't have any official position statement, at least not presently, from the bank regulators."

Dennis Shaul, the head of the Community Financial Services Association of America that represents some of the targeted payday lenders, said that his group will keep pursuing a lawsuit against the federal government over Operation Choke Point in order to "hold these regulatory agencies accountable" and allow businesses to regain access to the banking system.

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Trump ends Obama's Operation Choke Point - Washington Examiner

Several websites pushed out a fresh accusation of plagiarism against First Lady Melania Trumpand once again, the alleged source for the supposedly ill-gotten words is former First Lady Michelle Obama.

On Saturday, August 12, as violence escalated in Charlottesville, Virginia, Mrs. Trump took to Twitter with this message: "Our country encourages freedom of speech, but let's communicate w/o hate in our hearts. No good comes from violence. #Charlottesville"

Sometime on Sunday, a meme appeared on Twitter, Facebook, and various other websites, that juxtaposed the words of the first lady's tweet and her picture with very similar words purportedly from Michelle Obama: "Our nation encourages freedom of speech, but let's communicate without hate in our hearts. No good comes of that." The former first lady's picture also appears in the meme (shown below), as well as the date when Mrs. Obama allegedly made the remarks, April 16, 2016.

However, there is no evidence that Michelle Obama ever uttered those words or anything remotely close to them. The Obama White House archives do not indicate any speech or remarks by Michelle Obama on the date in question, nor does a broader search turn up any such remarks by the former first lady at any point during her husband's presidency. A review of contemporaneous news reports similarly comes up empty as well.

The photo of Mrs. Obama used in the meme comes from an October 13, 2016 appearance at a Hillary for America campaign event in Manchester, New Hampshire. During her remarks, Mrs. Obama excoriated then-candidate Trump for vulgar remarks in a 2005 Access Hollywood taping. But again, the transcript of the speech contains nothing close to the words in the meme.

Despite the complete lack of evidence, within days the meme and related stories were shared on Twitter and Facebook thousands of times. Rickey Smiley, a comedian and TV-radio personality, featured the false story under the headline "First Lady Forger: Did Melania Trump Just Plagiarize Michelle Obama Again!?" Smiley's Facebook fan page and blog linked to a Raw Story piece which in turn used an International Business Times story as its source. Other sites responsible for wide distribution of the fake meme include an unofficial Bill Maher fan page and AlterNet News.

The meme plays off a 2016 incident in which the speech Melania Trump delivered at the Republican National Convention drew heavily on remarks made by Michelle Obama in 2008. A Trump campaign aide who wrote the speech for Mrs. Trump took responsibility for the uncredited words, saying that she took notes while Mrs. Trump read passages from Mrs. Obama's earlier speech. Those notes were incorporated into the final draft of the speech without attribution. The aide offered to resign, but Donald Trump declined her offer.

The new accusation of plagiarism, while drawn from the 2016 incident, seems to have been largely shared with the understanding that it was likely a hoax. In Rickey Smiley's posting for example, the article ends with "Before you pull out your pitchfork though, know that none of this has been confirmed. No one has proven that Michelle actually said or tweeted those words beforefor all we know, it could just be a meme gone out of control."

Even the original International Business Times story noted that it was an "unproven claim whether Melania stole Obama's words" and "[w]hile the possibility of plagiarism has not been ruled out in the latest instance, reports said the viral meme was most likely a spoof."

Whatever doubts existed, thousands of social media users enthusiastic spread the story based on the sensational headlines. While mainstream news outlets have largely avoided the story for now, Yahoo! News picked up and reprinted the International Business Times version with the headline "Melania Trump Accused Of Copying Michelle Obama Again." But while the IBT story headline included the phrase "Maybe Wrongly This Time," that caveat was missing in the Yahoo! Headline.

While the original source of the meme remains a mystery, the spread of false stories such as this is anything but.

If you have questions about this fact check, or would like to submit a request for another fact check, email The Weekly Standard at factcheck@weeklystandard.com.

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Fact Check: Did Melania Trump Plagiarize Michelle Obama on Twitter? - The Weekly Standard

By Darren Hauck/Getty Images.

In the days since violence erupted in Charlottesville, Virginia, last weekend, President Donald Trump has delivered three different statements, each with varying levels of condemnation for neo-Nazis and white supremacists, and a seemingly mixed message about whether Nazis are, in fact, bad. The violence also brought an elegantly concise tweet from former President Barack Obama quoting Nelson Mandela, which he posted on Saturday. By Wednesday morning, Obama's tweet had received the highest number of likes ever, according to Twitter:

Nostalgia for Obama among his supporters has only grown since the day he left office; every post on social media, or public appearance by Michelle Obama, has been typically met with cries of Come back! But Obamas viral tweet, in all its calming guidance, followed by two more that completed the Mandela passage, arrived at a time when Trump appeared at his least presidential. It is the easiest thing in the world, as multiple late-night comedians have pointed out, to condemn Nazis; Trump, in three separate speeches, couldn't manage to pull it off. But Obama showed exactly how easy it could be.

It wasn't just an 140-character lesson in how to act presidential; it was also Obama besting Trump at his favorite medium, Twitter. Obama, with the most-liked tweet of all time, has beaten Trump here, a fact the numbers-obsessed president is not likely to miss. Though neither of the Obamas have actively spoken out against any of Trumps actions, their occasional public appearancesfrom Michelle continuing to promote fitness to Barack's occasional but pointed tweetsact as a counter-force to the ongoing D.C. turmoil.

We'll see how much longer the former president can keep things this subtle. With former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush releasing a joint statement Wednesday condemning white supremacy, it's possible Obama will feel compelled to take a more active role in opposing the Trump administration.

But in the meantime, theres this powerful tweet, which like so many posts of the Obama presidency comes with a stirring photo (of Obama casually greeting young children at a window) that says at least as much as his words. (Trump has photos, too, but they convey something vastly different.) Obamas record-breaking tweet is still the first thing visitors see on his Twiter page. Trumps Twitter, on the other hand, features a retweet about violence in Chicago, another tweet that celebrates being home in New York, along with a seemingly random MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN all-caps tweet.

The former president has a bit of a spring in his step as he leaves Manhattan restaurant Upland.

Obama rocks his full dad-jeans-and-shades look as he walks the grounds of the familys Bali resort with daughter Malia.

Out of the Oval Office and onto the water!

Dad jeans? More like dad trip jeans.

While the 45th president and his administration began wreaking havoc in D.C., 44 kitesurfed into the next phase of his life.

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The former president has a bit of a spring in his step as he leaves Manhattan restaurant Upland.

By James Devaney/GC Images.

From AP/REX/Shutterstock.

By Duncan McGlynn/Splash News.

Obama rocks his full dad-jeans-and-shades look as he walks the grounds of the familys Bali resort with daughter Malia.

From AP/REX/Shutterstock.

By Matteo Bazzi/EPA/REX/Shutterstock.

Out of the Oval Office and onto the water!

By Made Nagi/EPA/REX/Shutterstock.

Dad jeans? More like dad trip jeans.

By Made Nagi/EPA/REX/Shutterstock.

While the 45th president and his administration began wreaking havoc in D.C., 44 kitesurfed into the next phase of his life.

By Jack Brockway/Getty Images.

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Why Barack Obama's Latest Tweet Became the Most-Liked in History - Vanity Fair

Heres some news that could potentially hold the key to Donald Trumps complete and irreversible mental meltdown: According to Twitter, Barack Obama, former President of the United States of America and subject of a bizarre and spiteful obsession for our current president, just broke the record for most-liked tweet of all time. The tweet in question was in response to the racist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend, and quotes Nelson Mandela:

Obamas Twitter statement came a few hours after President Trumps half-assed criticism of both sides, almost two days before someone on his staff forced his reluctant condemnation of racist violence, and three days before Trump let us all know how he really feels, which is that some Nazis are actually very fine people (who voted for him).

Obamas tweet dethroned the previous, equally sad champion, Ariana Grandes heartbroken statement on the deaths of 22 people at one of her concerts in May. According to NPR, Obama has two more tweets in the top five most-liked ever, including one in support of John McCain after McCains brain cancer diagnosis and another announcing that he was taking a quick vacation after leaving office. (Ellen DeGeneres famous Oscars selfie rounds out the top five.) Those all received in excess of 1.5 million likes apiece. Trump, meanwhile, has failed to crack 200,000 likes in the past month, and got 605,000 likes on a tweet where he body-slammed CNN back in July 2. Obama also has nearly three times more Twitter followers than Trump, 93.6 million to Trumps 36.1 million. Given his clear love for the social-media platform, maybe its not just his crowd size and hand size that make Trump feel small.

[via The Root, which, like The A.V. Club, is owned by Univision Communications.]

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Obama's Charlottesville response breaks the record for most-liked tweet ever - A.V. Club

Communications technology lies at the center of politics: The printing press, the telegram, radio, television, and the Internet have successively formed a long cascade of change in how politicians and leaders communicate with citizens. Twitter ( twtr ) seems to be the latest iteration in this evolution. Studies like Twiplomacy , which conducts a yearly survey of how world leaders tweet, attest to the global importance of the platform.

Barack Obama and Donald Trump both notably relied on the social media platform to build their presidential campaigns and build direct, personal rapport with their supporters. And yet, there is one glaring difference between their profile pages: Obama has around three times as many followers as Trump.

Make no mistake, both have a disproportionate amount of power on social media. Klout, a firm that measures social media influence, puts them at around the same score98 for Obama and 95 for Trump, on a scale of 100. Even casual observers know that both can elicit worldwide reactions from their tweets, which is most lamentable with Trumps proclivity for tweets on North Korea and nuclear warand yet, Obama boasts 93.6 million followers on Twitter and has six of the 10 most-liked tweets of all time, while Trump has a comparatively paltry 36.1 million followers.

It is important to realize that all high-profile politicians, regardless of country or party, have fake bot followers on social media. This fact in particular makes the Trump administration's claims of popular support based on his online following tenuous at best. This is a phenomenon Oxford researchers have deemed manufacturing consensus. All the same, given Trumps savvy for digital propaganda , it is surprising he only commands a third of the following that former president Obama does. Obama's longer tenure as a figure in the international public eye may have contributed an initial boost to this following, but something deeper must be underlying the numbers. Whats behind the enormous gulf?

A Harvard scholar of political science, Joseph Nye, coined the term soft power in the 1980s. Nye has written that Soft power is the ability to get what you want by attracting and persuading others to adopt your goals. It differs from hard power, the ability to use economic and military might to make others follow your will.

Unlike real-world politics, there is no hard power in the online sphere. Soft poweressentially a synonym for coolness, received admiration, or genuine respect hereis the currency of social media. Obama exuded a presidential equanimity and global consciousness that drove worldwide perception of the United States up 15% during his eight years as president, according to Pew Research. That positive view of the States immediately suffered a precipitous drop when Trump took office in January. Where 64% of global citizens favored Obama, only 22% of them have a positive view of Trump.

These numbers, coupled with the fact that Trumps first day in office inspired the single largest protest in U.S. history , underlie one simple conclusion: People simply dont like Trump. They dont like him in real life, and they dont like him online. In the real world, they may laugh at his antics, they may watch his borderline syntax-less speeches, they may even obligingly vote for him as the least worst of two options, but they still dont like him. Conveniently for the electioneering Trump, this fact can be hidden in real life, but onlinewhere popularity among human users is truly democratic and organicthe numbers tell the whole story.

Nick Monaco is a research affiliate at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) and ComProp , the Computational Propaganda Project at OII.

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How Obama Is Owning Trump on Twitter - Fortune