Nicolai Haugsted
Capital One says Trump’s accounts were closed after months-long review.
Donald Trump’s legal campaign against Capital One has produced an awkward disclosure that might never have surfaced without the lawsuit.
Court documents filed by the bank show that specialists in financial crime examined hundreds of Trump-linked accounts before Capital One decided to end its relationship with the Trump Organization. No previous major bank has publicly confirmed conducting such a review of the president’s business empire.
Capital One disclosed the information while asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the Trump Organization and Eric Trump.
Their complaint accuses the bank of closing more than 300 affiliated accounts for political reasons after the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump’s company has portrayed the decision as part of a broader campaign by supposedly “woke” financial institutions to discriminate against conservatives.
Capital One offers a very different explanation.
“The closures were the result of months of analysis and a careful review by Capital One’s AML team in accordance with bank policies and regulatory guidance,” they said according to The Daily Beast.
According to the filing, the process began after the bank identified transaction patterns that matched categories highlighted in federal banking guidance.
No allegation of criminal conduct
Court papers do not accuse Trump, his family or the Trump Organization of laundering money or committing another crime.
Capital One instead argues that the activity was sufficient to trigger an internal compliance review. Professionals with decades of law-enforcement experience reportedly led the examination before the bank decided to close the accounts.
Bank officials said the existence of the review was being disclosed only because the Trump family chose to sue.
Trump Organization representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Capital One first informed the Trump Organization in March 2021 that the accounts would be closed. Four years later, Eric Trump and the company filed their lawsuit in federal court in Florida.
Lawyers for the bank have rejected claims that anti-money laundering concerns were invented to disguise political motives.
“Misguided” and “based on cherry-picked quotations unsupported by the full context.”
Capital One maintains that the Trump family’s case relies on selective excerpts from documents rather than the complete record surrounding the decision.
Previous complaint already dismissed
Judge Roy Altman, who was appointed by Trump, dismissed an earlier version of the lawsuit in March. However, the family was permitted to submit an amended complaint, keeping the dispute alive.
Trump has repeatedly accused financial institutions of targeting conservatives. During his second term, he signed an executive order directing regulators to investigate alleged politically motivated “debanking.”
Similar accusations form the basis of a separate $5 billion lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase and chief executive Jamie Dimon. Trump claims the bank closed his accounts in 2021 because of “political and social motivations.”
Capital One’s filing now risks shifting attention away from those allegations and toward the internal compliance concerns that preceded the closures.
