All right, in tonight’s deep dive, [music] we’re taking a closer look at Capital One, who says it closed hundreds of bank accounts associated with President Trump and his businesses for what it calls quote anti-moneyaundering reasons. Capital One made the claim in a new court filing after the president sued, alleging the account closures in 2021 were unlawful and politically motivated. Lawyers for Capital 1 denied those allegations and say it never publicized the decision or its process. In a statement to ABC News, a spokesperson for the Trump Organization alleges Capital One was trying to manufacture a justification to close the accounts to quote conceal what was plainly a politically motivated decision following the January 6th attack on the capital here in the Washington DC. ABC’s Peter Haros has been reporting on this and tracking this story for us.
And Peter, I I I think it’s notable here that the bank did not explicitly accuse the Trump organization of money laundering, but can you walk us through this filing? >> Yeah, that that’s right, Alex. At the end of the day here, Capital One is pushing to have this case thrown out. They’ve been partially successful in the past. For example, a few months ago, the judge threw out the case, the first version of the case that Trump filed.
Trump refiled the case earlier last month, excuse me. And in this motion, Capital One is basically arguing that the reasons for the cancellation of those accounts, about 385 different accounts associated with Trump and his family’s companies, was justified, that it was one of the agreed upon reasons that the Trumps agreed to when they signed up for those accounts. They say they did a monthslong review by their anti-moneyaundering team. They flagged some suspicious elements related to those banks and notified the Trumps in March of 2021 that those accounts would be closed. They gave them time.
They didn’t disclose the fact that those accounts were being closed. They didn’t disclose the reason certainly, but now that they’re fighting this lawsuit, Capital One saying they have to come out and basically justify this to convince the judge to dismiss this case. You know, something else that I was trying to to understand. Months before the closure of these accounts, Capital One actually agreed to pay a penalty for failing to implement and maintain an effective anti-moneyaundering program. Can you tell us about that?
Yeah, and this might be part of the reason Capital One was exercising that scrutiny over Trump’s accounts because just months ahead of closing them, they had to pay a $390 million fine to the Financial Crimes Reporting Network because they didn’t have a robust moneyaundering uh review program. Basically, a review of their own policies found that between 2008 and 2014, they failed to flag millions of dollars in suspicious transactions. They paid that fine. They agreed to implement a more robust program. And just months after that agreement, that’s when Trump’s company was notified about the closing of these accounts.
The actual fine, the fact that they had to pay that penalty was not included in the court filing, but it provides some context to what what Capital One was doing at the time. >> Well, and and the other thing, Peter, we know the president has filed a similar lawsuit against JP Morgan Chase. Where does that stand? And also, how is the bank responding? Yeah, JP Morgan says that lawsuit’s meritless.
They’re fighting to have it dismissed. But in that case, one thing that is notable is that they admitted actually pretty shortly after Trump filed the lawsuit that they did cancel Trump’s accounts, but they tried to justify them for what they said was legal and proper reasons. They say they frequently close accounts that pose quote legal or regulatory risk. Though this really comes as President Trump has really made a push to end what he has called the debanking of conservatives. He signed an executive order last year trying to clamp down on this.
Though we’re beginning to see some negative side effects perhaps of these lawsuits. The president of course filing these lawsuits against companies like Capital One, against JP Morgan. He’s filed one against the BBC. And as these cases move forward, the Trump Organization, Trump and his families have to disclose information as part of discovery. For example, last month we saw a judge order Trumps to comply with the subpoena related to his own financial records.
He now needs to turn that over related to that BBC lawsuit for defamation. >> Very interesting.
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