Donald Trump sued JP Morgan and its CEO Jamie Dimon for $5 billion on Thursday in Florida, alleging the bank closed his accounts for political reasons after January 6. He had warned of legal action in a Truth Social post, calling the move “incorrectly and inappropriately debanking me after the January 6th protest, a protest that turned out to be correct for those doing the protesting.”
The complaint says the bank ended relationships in early 2021 because of “political and social motivations” and accused JP Morgan of distancing itself from his conservative views. A JP Morgan spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Earlier this year, speaking from the Oval Office, Trump blamed the Joe Biden administration and regulators for banks’ actions and said, “I can tell you, because I’ve been a victim myself, because of my politics, that big banks were very nasty to us.” (Ed. note: those earlier remarks placed primary blame on regulators, not bank leaders.) A clip of that exchange appears in a tweet and was also shared via an embedded post.
In August, the president signed an executive order directing regulators to adopt policies intended to prevent politically motivated debanking and to address crypto-related banking issues, noting “The digital assets industry has […] been the unfair target of debanking initiatives.”
The lawsuit frames debanking as a long-term dispute linking the Trump family and crypto advocates, who have alleged a campaign called “Operation Chokepoint 2.0” cut off banking access. Federal regulators under the current administration have since issued explicit policies aimed at easing those concerns (see a related market poll).
