Outrage has erupted among conservatives after JPMorgan Chase terminated Donald Trump’s personal and business banking arrangements in the wake of the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
As the largest financial institution in the United States, Chase was compelled to acknowledge the account closures following Trump’s recent $5 billion legal action against the bank and its CEO, Jamie Dimon.
Steve Guest, who previously served as a communications advisor for Republican Senator Ted Cruz, took to social media to demand accountability, stating that Dimon “has some serious explaining to do.”
“JPMC has finally confessed to de-banking the President of the United States. If they can do this to POTUS, they’ll do it to anyone,” Guest expressed online.
Trump’s longtime strategist, Jason Miller, offered his succinct reaction, posting: “I mean, what the f***.”
Documents disclosed on Friday during the discovery phase revealed that on February 19, 2021, Chase informed Trump via two letters of their decision to shut down numerous accounts under his name.
The letters did not mention any specific reason why the accounts were being shut down, only that sometimes ‘we may determine that a client’s interests are no longer served by maintaining a relationship with J.P. Morgan Private Bank’.
‘With that in mind, this letter is to respectfully inform you that we will need to end our current relationship,’ one letter said.
Conservatives are furious that JPMorgan Chase closed Donald Trump’s personal and business bank accounts following the January 6 attack on the Capitol in 2021
Chase, America’s largest bank by assets, closed Trump’s accounts after the January 6 riot
Conservatives are furious that JPMorgan Chase closed Donald Trump’s personal and business bank accounts following the January 6 attack on the Capitol in 2021
The letters said Trump had two months to inform the bank what account he wanted to transfer his assets to.
Chase did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Daily Mail also approached the lawyers from the Jones Day law firm, which are representing the bank and Dimon in the case.
The bank has previously said Trump’s case is without merit.
A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team told Reuters that the letters are ‘a devastating concession that proves President Trump’s entire claim.’
JPMorgan ‘admitted to unlawfully and intentionally de-banking President Trump, his family, and his businesses, causing overwhelming financial harm’, the spokesperson said.
Trump’s lawyers said in their complaint, first filed in Florida state court on January 22, that JPMorgan’s decision to close his accounts ‘came about as a result of political and social motivations, and JPMC’s unsubstantiated, “woke” beliefs that it needed to distance itself from President Trump and his conservative political views.’
‘In essence, JPMC de-banked Plaintiffs’ Accounts because it believed that the political tide at the moment favored doing so,’ his lawyers wrote.
Trump’s attorneys also claimed that he suffered ‘extensive reputational harm’ by having to go to other financial institutions and ask them to accept the millions of dollars he previously held with Chase.
Conservatives were furious Saturday after it was revealed that JPMorgan Chase closed dozens of Donald Trump’s bank accounts in the aftermath of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol in 2021. Trump strategist Jason Miller (pictured) reacted: ‘I mean, what the f***’
Steve Guest, a former communications aide to Republican Senator Ted Cruz , said in a social media post that JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon ‘has some serious explaining to do’
In February, Chase filed a motion to move the case from state court to federal court in Miami on an immediate basis.
Going forward, the bank wants the case permanently moved to New York federal court, since most of the relevant bank accounts and businesses were based in that state.
In a filing on February 19, the bank’s lawyers said that Dimon was ‘fraudulently joined’ in the case.
As part of their argument, Trump’s legal team has invoked Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act (FDUTPA) to say that Dimon personally directed the de-banking of Trump and his businesses.
JPMorgan’s lawyers say the FDUTPA exempts federally-regulated bank officers, like Dimon, from getting sued under the law.
Trump already has a fraught relationship with Dimon, who refused to donate to the president’s White House ballroom project.
‘We have an issue, which is anything we do – we do a lot of contracts with governments here and around the world – we have to be very careful how anything is perceived, and also, how the next DOJ is going to deal with it,’ Dimon said in a November interview with Erin Burnett.
‘We’re quite conscious of the risk we bear by doing anything that looks like buying favors or anything like that. We have helped the inaugurations, that was a normal thing that a lot of companies did.’
Dimon has had a famously frosty relationship with Trump, once saying the president did not understand the debt ceiling
Notably, JPMorgan did donate $1 million to Trump’s second inauguration, joining top other corporate contributors such as crypto firm Ripple Labs, Chevron, Robinhood Markets and FedEx.
Dimon has also accused Trump of not understanding basic economics. In 2023, he said the president was failing to grasp the concept of the debt ceiling, describing this as ‘one more thing he doesn’t know very much about.’
The debt ceiling is the legal limit on the total amount of money the United States government is authorized to borrow to fund nondiscretionary budget items, such as Social Security Medicare, military salaries and interest on the national debt.
At the time, Trump had said during a CNN townhall that defaulting on the US debt would be preferable to not reining in government spending.
Nearly all economists agree that the consequences of a default – i.e. the country running out of money to pay its bills – would be ‘catastrophic’ for the US and the global economy.
The stock market would almost certainly crash in such a scenario, with investors around the world coming to the realization that the US – thought to be the most stable government in the world – could not fulfill its financial obligations for the first time in its 250 years of existence.
Dimon backed Nikki Haley over Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, and Trump hit back by calling him a ‘highly overrated globalist’.
He also previously called Dimon a ‘nervous mess’ in 2018, added that he does not think he is smart enough to ever become president.
