In the wake of President Donald Trump’s executive order outlawing debanking, major bank executives told Fox News Digital that they were under pressure by the Obama and Biden administrations to deny services to individuals and businesses for political reasons.
“Those pressures were very, very real. When your regulator gives you a suggestion, it’s not a suggestion, it’s an order. The political stuff is very real, those pressures are real,” a senior banking executive told Fox News Digital.
Debanking refers to the practice of banks closing accounts or denying services to individuals or businesses, often with no explanation. The practice originated as part of federal anti-money laundering laws and regulations. An entity can be debanked after its transactions are marked suspicious, but in recent years, conservative and religious groups have accused banks of discriminating against them for their beliefs.
Fox News Digital spoke with two executives at leading U.S. banks, who asked to remain anonymous, fearing reprisals.
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The executives said that ambiguity in federal laws was exploited by regulators under the Obama and Biden administrations in order to pursue political objectives. According to one executive, banks were pressured to deny services to certain industries as part of Operation Choke Point and Operation Choke Point 2.0.
“When there’s ambiguity in the law, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and for a long time the beholder was the Obama and Biden administration,” the official said.
A House Oversight Committee report found that “Operation Choke Point,” a DOJ task force whose aim was to “choke out” legal companies disfavored by the Obama administration, worked with bank regulators to label certain industries, including firearms sales, as “high risk.”
Trump ended “Operation Choke Point” in 2017 during his first term. However, a House Financial Services Committee hearing last week heard accusations that former President Joe Biden had rebooted the initiative and targeted crypto firms for debanking as part of “Operation Choke Point 2.0.”
Trump claimed to be a victim of debanking, and accused JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and others of refusing more than $1 billion in his deposits. First lady Melania Trump wrote in her memoir that she and her son Barron were debanked, as well.
“I was shocked and dismayed to learn that my long‑time bank decided to terminate my account and deny my son the opportunity to open a new one. … This decision appeared to be rooted in political discrimination, raising serious concerns about civil rights violations,” Melania wrote.
“We welcome the Trump administration’s efforts to provide regulatory clarity to banks. We’ve provided detailed proposals and will continue to work with the administration and Congress to improve the regulatory framework,” Bank of America told Fox News Digital in a statement.
Former Republican senator Sam Brownback accused JPMorgan Chase of having debanked his nonprofit, the National Committee for Religious Freedom, in 2022. JPMorgan maintains that they never engaged in political debanking, but updated their code of conduct to state that they do not discriminate based on political views or religious beliefs in 2025 — which the bank stated was merely the codification of existing policy.
“We don’t close accounts for political reasons, and we agree with President Trump that regulatory change is desperately needed. We’re pleased to see the White House is addressing this issue, for which we’ve been advocating for many years, and look forward to working with them to get this right,” a JPMorgan representative told Fox News Digital in a statement.
According to Inspire Investing CFA Tim Schwarzenberger, whose firm has been deeply involved with combating debanking, banks would use the criteria of “reputational risk” to deny services to politically disfavored groups and individuals.
Trump’s order, entitled “Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans,” which he signed Thursday, promised to ban banks from denying services to a customer based off of their political views or other beliefs. The order prohibits banks from using “reputational risk” as a criterion to deny someone services in a politicized way.
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“The executive order really is a breakthrough moment,” Schwarzenberger told Fox News Digital.
Another senior banking executive said that negative news coverage was considered criteria for “reputational risk.” During the period between the 2020 presidential election and Trump’s return to the Oval Office in 2024, he was subject to a flurry of lawsuits and negative press. Banks, according to the official, responding to the wishes of regulators, would use the negative press directed at conservatives as a pretext to debank them.
“It’s all kind of set up, it’s like somebody set the table, and it all ends up focusing on Republicans and conservatives,” the executive said.
The executive added that banks were under constant regulatory pressure to file more “suspicious activity reports,” reports submitted to the Treasury about unusual banking activity, and to debank more customers. He said the regulators didn’t need to explicitly tell banks to deny services to any particular individual or business. The administration’s preferences were well known, and the banks were expected to comply.
The first banking executive said that while regulators may have good intentions, their worldviews would inevitably influence their decisions and that there were “real reasons to think there was political considerations.” Rather than get on the wrong side of the regulators, banks would preemptively refuse to take certain clients.
“It’s better for us to just not take on certain business if we suspect an examiner can come in and say six months ago you shouldn’t have taken this client,” the bank official told Fox News Digital.
Schwarzenberger told Fox News Digital that there is reason for optimism that debanking for political reasons will become a thing of the past, and pointed to commitments that banks made on their own before Trump’s executive order was issued.
In addition to JPMorgan, Bank of America, CitiGroup and PNC Bank have all taken steps to reassure customers that they do not discriminate based on political or religious views.
When reached for comment, Citi referred Fox News Digital to a June statement which said that the bank “has always been fully committed to treating all current and potential clients fairly, and we have policies, procedures and controls in place for this express purpose.”
PNC declined to comment.
Representatives for Obama and Biden didn’t respond to a request for comment.
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