Capital One cites AML review in closure of 300 Trump accounts

Capital One Financial said Friday it closed more than 300 Trump Organization accounts after an internal anti-money laundering review, the first time a bank has formally linked money laundering concerns to President Donald Trump's family business.

"The transaction patterns identified by Capital One are among the types of activity flagged by federal banking guidance," the bank said in a filing seeking dismissal of the Trump Organization's lawsuit alleging political discrimination.

The bank gave notice of the closures in March 2021, months after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. The Trump Organization and Eric Trump sued in March 2025 in Miami federal court, alleging Capital One closed the accounts because of its "woke" beliefs and desire to benefit from the political mood after the riot. A judge has tossed two complaints but allowed amended filings each time.

The case sits at the center of a broader clash between the Trump administration and Wall Street over "debanking." Trump signed an executive order in August 2025 barring discriminatory debanking and filed a similar suit against JPMorgan Chase in January 2026, a policy environment that has put pressure on major banks.

'Misguided' Allegations

Capital One said the latest amended complaint, filed in July, "suffers from the same fundamental flaws as their prior two pleadings." The bank called the Trump Organization's allegations of political pretext "misguided" and "based on cherry-picked quotations unsupported by the full context" of documents submitted to the court.

The closures resulted from "months of analysis and a careful review by Capital One's AML team in accordance with bank policies and regulatory guidance," the filing said. Capital One has never accused the Trump Organization of illegal money laundering, and the filing does not detail the specific transactions at issue. The bank also noted it "never publicized the termination decision nor its confidential internal process giving rise to the closure, and it permitted plaintiffs several months (and granted several extensions) to find new banking services, which they did."

The filing argues that the Trump Organization's own allegations and documents make clear the closures were for AML reasons. The bank said the Trump Organization has not alleged how any explanation of the flagged transactions "would have altered Capital One's determination or prevented the account closures."

Broader Debanking Battle

The Capital One case is part of a wave of lawsuits Trump or his business interests have filed since he retook the White House. In January, Trump sued JPMorgan Chase over the bank's closure of his personal accounts in 2021. Both banks say their customer agreements explicitly allow them to close accounts for any reason.

The amended lawsuit includes a 10-page section titled "January 6, 2021: The Political Trigger" that is entirely blacked out, making it impossible to see any evidence the Trump Organization may have obtained tying the account closures to the Capitol attack. A less-redacted version may be filed after both sides agree on what can become public.

Capital One on Friday asked that names of its employees involved in the matter remain redacted, citing the high-profile nature of the case. The Trump Organization's legal team said in a statement that "Capital One, along with other major banks, de-banked President Trump, his family, and his businesses for blatantly political reasons."

The case also echoes an earlier confrontation: In 2019, during his first term, Trump sued Capital One and Deutsche Bank to prevent them from sharing financial records with Congress. Anti-money laundering professionals at Deutsche Bank reportedly flagged a set of transactions, but executives ignored them; Deutsche Bank denied the report at the time.

Filings from both sides have highlighted how federal rules require banks to take action under compliance and anti-money laundering rules. The Trump administration has criticized some of those rules, saying they are harmful. The outcome of the case could shape how banks handle high-profile clients with potential AML concerns — if Capital One prevails, it would reinforce that banks can close accounts based on regulatory risk without facing political discrimination claims. If the Trump Organization succeeds, it could force banks to disclose more about their internal compliance decisions, potentially chilling legitimate AML enforcement.

The case is Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust v. Capital One, 25-cv-21596, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida (Miami).

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.