Business

Political Debanking Ran Rampant At America’s Biggest Banks, Federal Probe Alleges

[Wikimedia Commons/Public/Vlad Lazarenko, CC BY 3.0, <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en>]

America’s largest banks maintained policies that disadvantaged customers over their political beliefs, religious affiliations and lawful business activities, according to a sweeping federal investigation released Wednesday.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) found that all nine major banks it examined maintained policies between 2020 and September 2025 that could encourage discriminatory banking decisions. The investigation, ordered under President Donald Trump’s 2025 executive order, documented instances of both conservative and left-leaning organizations being denied financial services, raising concerns about banks allowing political considerations to override objective financial risks.

The investigation examined JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC Bank, TD Bank and BMO Bank. Regulators reviewed approximately 420,000 pages of bank documents, nearly 100,000 complaints and hundreds of individual banking decisions.

“Today’s report provides irrefutable evidence that the nation’s largest banks have denied, debanked and discriminated against customers and lawful businesses,” Comptroller Jonathan Gould said in a statement.

The OCC found that banks relied on subjective reputation-risk policies that allowed employees to consider political affiliations, public controversy and the views of advocacy organizations when deciding whether to provide financial services. Restrictions also affected lawful businesses involved in firearms manufacturing, coal mining, oil and gas production, tobacco and digital assets.

In one instance, PNC declined a line of credit to a media company after employees raised concerns about its owners’ conservative political affiliations. The company was growing financially, and its relationship manager had not identified specific credit concerns at the time, according to the report.

Capital One also declined banking opportunities involving organizations on both sides of the political spectrum. The bank rejected potential relationships with reproductive-rights organizations and a public education group whose political arm endorsed exclusively Democratic candidates. One employee noted that approximately 95% of an abortion-rights organization’s political contributions went to Democrats. Capital One also declined a potential relationship with a gun-rights organization.

The investigation additionally found that JPMorgan Chase repeatedly declined to provide commercial financial services to a conservative-leaning retailer between 2021 and 2023. Employees subsequently modified internal records documenting those decisions, removing politically charged descriptions including “right-wing.”

A JPMorgan spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the records were updated following subsequent reviews.

“All versions were maintained in an audit file,” the spokesperson said.

WePay, a former JPMorgan subsidiary, also terminated accounts belonging to politically conservative merchants. In February 2021, the payment processor closed an account belonging to a merchant selling merchandise promoting Trump and his Make America Great Again movement.

The OCC found that WePay used screening terms including “MAGA,” “Make America Great” and “America First” to flag potentially prohibited merchant activity. JPMorgan’s own reputation-risk employees participated in certain WePay account-closure decisions, although the report said they did not provide input on the February 2021 closure.

“A process used by WePay, a small technology company we acquired years ago and have since wound down, did not meet our expectations,” a JPMorgan spokesperson told the DCNF. “We identified it, corrected it, and the business no longer operates.”

The Bank Policy Institute (BPI), a trade association representing major financial institutions, supported clearer banking standards and the administration’s efforts to prioritize measurable financial risks over reputational concerns.

“The banking industry supports fair access to banking services and has been working to ensure that government regulations and policies enable banks to serve law-abiding customers,” BPI said in a statement provided to the DCNF.

The report expanded on the OCC’s December 2025 preliminary findings, which focused primarily on restrictions affecting lawful industries. Despite the scope of its investigation, the agency acknowledged it could not comprehensively quantify the number of customers affected or their financial losses.

Wells Fargo declined to comment to the DCNF. PNC said it was reviewing the report but did not provide a more substantive response.

The OCC said it was considering additional regulatory changes, warning that banks’ existing reforms might not be sufficient to prevent similar practices from recurring.

First lady Melania Trump alleged in her 2024 memoir that her longtime bank closed her account and refused to allow her son Barron Trump to open a new one. She characterized the decisions as apparent political discrimination, although the bank was not identified and the allegations were not independently substantiated.

Trump publicly confronted Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan during the World Economic Forum in January 2025, accusing his bank of refusing to serve conservatives. “They don’t take conservative business,” Trump said, before also referencing JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. “What you’re doing is wrong.”

The concerns extend to the firearms industry. In August, the DCNF reported that three financial services companies assured West Virginia Attorney General J.B. McCuskey they would not discriminate against firearms businesses following an investigation into alleged financial discrimination against ammunition manufacturer Kent Cartridge Company. First Internet Bank of Indiana, Ramp.com and Bill.com provided those assurances, averting potential lawsuits from the state.