Trump Family Fight Against Top Bank Backfires Spectacularly
The Trump family’s lawsuit against a major bank has brought an anti-money laundering review out of the shadows.
Nathan Howard/REUTERS
The Trump family has shot itself in the foot with its legal gambit against Capital One.
The top bank revealed in a new court filing that its anti-money laundering experts had reviewed the Trump Organization’s accounts before it decided to close the company’s accounts.
Never before has a bank publicly acknowledged money laundering concerns involving Donald Trump’s business.
Capital One made the revelation in a court filing asking a judge to dismiss the Trump Organization’s lawsuit accusing the bank of illegally “debanking” the company because of its “woke” beliefs and political discrimination in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
The presiding judge, Roy Altman, a Trump appointee, already dismissed an earlier version of the Trump family’s lawsuit in March.
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Imag
In Friday’s court filing, however, Capital One said it closed the more than 300 Trump-affiliated bank accounts “for anti-money laundering (“AML”) reasons.”
“The closures were the result of months of analysis and a careful review by Capital One’s AML team in accordance with bank policies and regulatory guidance,” the company said.
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Capital One said it launched the review after identifying “transaction patterns” that “are among the types of activity flagged by federal banking guidance.”
The filing did not accuse Trump or his company of wrongdoing, and the company said the decision to close the Trump Organization’s accounts was reached through a process led by anti-money laundering professionals with “decades of law enforcement experience.”
Trump held his January 2025 inaugural parade inside Washington, D.C.’s Capital One Arena.
Carlos Barria/REUTERS
The bank said it was disclosing the anti-money laundering review only because of the Trump family’s lawsuit.
The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Capitol One first notified the Trump Organization that it planned to close the company’s accounts in March 2021.
Four years later, in March 2025, the Trump Organization and Eric Trump, the president’s son, filed their lawsuit against the bank in a Florida federal court.
Capital One has denied the Trump family’s claim that the bank manufactured anti-money laundering concerns as a cover for political motives, arguing in the new filing that the Trump family’s allegation is “misguided” and “based on cherry-picked quotations unsupported by the full context” of documents submitted to the court.
The presiding judge, Roy Altman, a Trump appointee, had already dismissed an earlier version of the lawsuit in March but gave the Trump family the opportunity to submit an amended complaint.
Trump has long accused banks of discriminating against conservatives. In August 2025, he signed an executive order directing regulators to crack down on alleged politically motivated “debanking.”
In a case mirroring his fight with Capital One, Trump sued JPMorgan Chase Bank and its CEO Jamie Dimon for $5 billion in Florida, accusing the bank of closing his accounts in 2021 “as a result of political and social motivations.”
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