NEW YORK: JPMorgan Chase acknowledged for the first time that it closed the bank accounts of President Donald Trump and several of his businesses in the political and legal aftermath of the Jan 6, 2021, attacks on the US Capitol, the latest development in a legal saga between the president and the nation’s biggest bank over the issue known as “debanking”.
The acknowledgement came in a court filing submitted this week in Trump’s lawsuit against the bank and its leader, Jamie Dimon. The president sued for US$5 billion, alleging that his accounts were closed for political reasons, disrupting his business operations.
“In February 2021, JPMorgan informed Plaintiffs that certain accounts maintained with JPMorgan’s CB and PB would be closed,” JPMorgan’s former chief administrative officer Dan Wilkening wrote in the court filing. The “PB” and “CB” stand for JPMorgan’s private bank and commercial bank.
Until now, JPMorgan has never admitted it closed the president’s accounts in writing after Jan 6. The bank would only speak hypothetically about when the bank closes accounts and its reasons for closing accounts, citing bank privacy laws.
A spokeswoman for the bank declined to comment beyond what the bank said in its legal filings.
Trump originally sued JPMorgan in Florida state court, where Trump’s primary residence is now located. The filings this week are part of an effort by JPMorgan Chase to have the case both moved from state to federal court and to have the jurisdiction of the case moved to New York, which is where the bank accounts were located and where Trump kept much of his business operations until recently.
Trump originally accused the bank of trade libel and violating state and federal unfair and deceptive trade practices.