Free Republic

Only two years ago, the idea that some Americans were being “debanked,” or cut off from financial institutions after being deemed politically incorrect, extreme, or dangerous, was often dismissed as a conspiracy or an accident. But federal regulators announced on Wednesday that they had reached a very different conclusion: Debanking really did happen. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) said that nine of the nation’s largest banks, as measured by assets, had policies in place between 2020 and 2025 that may have influenced their decisions to “deny or limit access to financial services” to customers or potential...

Major banks closed accounts and refused credit to MAGA merchants, pro-life causes, religious groups, conservative organizations and sectors disfavored by the Biden administration, such as firearms, oil and gas, and private prisons, a bombshell report from the federal banking regulator has found. The Debanking Review by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) investigated 100,000 complaints and scrutinized 50,000 internal bank records to reveal how customers were “debanked” based purely on their political, social, or religious beliefs. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC, TD Bank, and BMO Bank were found to...

🚨 BREAKING: Stephen Miller announces the Trump administration and Sec. Scott Bessent are moving to DE-BANK illegal aliens, making it UNBEARABLE to stay in America BASED 🔥🔥 "Once illegal aliens lose their access to capital, that is going to be a MAJOR driver of self deportation!" "We are NOT going to allow illegal aliens to use banking services in this country. You know, contrary to popular perception, the stupid phrase about 'illegal aliens living in the shadows.' Illegal aliens DON'T live in the shadows! Illegal aliens have credit cards." "They have bank accounts and their paid with direct deposit." "So...

In a turnaround that surprised Wall Street, woke funds are no longer trendy. The savvy investors are staying away. Not so long ago, the acronym ESG was trendy in investment markets. The woke thing to do was to invest in ESG-friendly funds. Their popularity promised a maximum return on investment with a commitment to woke ideals. ESG stands for investing in corporations based on Environmental, Social and corporate-Governance factors. By adopting an ESG approach, mutual fund operators could deliver maximum return on investment while maintaining a minimal carbon footprint. Investors could virtue signal their support for LGBT and other social...

Banks in the U.S. may not like the idea of being forced to collect citizenship data on customers, but Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says they better be prepared for the task. “If Treasury and the banking regulators say it’s their job, it’s their job,” Bessent told CNBC’s Sara Eisen at the Invest in America Forum in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. An executive order that has been discussed for months took a step closer to reality earlier this week when Bessent said in an interview with Semafor that the EO is “in process.” The planned EO is one more plank in...

A growing legal battle between President Donald Trump and one of America’s most powerful financial institutions is putting a spotlight on a controversial issue that could affect businesses, investors, and everyday Americans alike: debanking. JPMorgan Chase has now formally acknowledged that it ended its banking relationship with Donald Trump and several Trump-affiliated businesses shortly after the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. The disclosure came as part of a major lawsuit filed by Trump seeking $5 billion in damages, alleging political discrimination and reputational harm.The case is quickly evolving into something far bigger than a dispute between a bank and a...

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, was forced to admit closing the accounts after Trump launched a $5 billion lawsuit last month against the bank and its CEO, Jamie Dimon. Steve Guest, a former communications aide to Republican Senator Ted Cruz, said in a social media post that Dimon 'has some serious explaining to do'. SNIP Documents released Friday as part of the discovery process showed that Chase sent Trump two letters on February 19, 2021,...

I’m at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland where I saw Chrystia Freeland, the disgraced former MP and cabinet minister. Actually, I think she saw me first and tried to hide from my sight.So I decided to ask her some questions.Now, if I had been in Canada, she would have had me arrested. That’s what she did to our reporter, David Menzies. And of course, she had no compunction about seizing bank accounts from hundreds of her political enemies during the trucker protest. (snip)I also asked her about her accepting a job working for the Ukrainian government, while also...

President Donald Trump said Saturday he plans to sue JPMorgan Chase, accusing the banking giant of improperly cutting off his accounts in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Trump made the allegation in a lengthy post on Truth Social, where he also denied a report that claimed he had offered JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon the job of Federal Reserve chair. Trump also pushed back on suggestions he had considered Dimon for Treasury secretary, saying he already has Scott Bessent in the role. "The problem is, I have Scott Bessent doing a fantastic job, A SUPERSTAR — Why...

The president also ruled out the bank’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, as a possible pick for Fed chair.President Donald Trump announced Saturday that he will be suing the investment banking company JPMorgan Chase within “the next two weeks” for allegedly “DEBANKING” him after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection. Trump has claimed that the investment bank closed or restricted his accounts following the riot, effectively cutting him off from longstanding banking relationships. He has framed the action as politically motivated retaliation, arguing banks acted under pressure from the Biden administration. Trump has increasingly folded this into a broader narrative of “debanking”...

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has released a report saying that the nine largest lenders in the U.S. made “inappropriate distinctions” that it used to restrict services among certain customers. Following the signing of an executive order by President Donald Trump in August of this year, the OCC began reviewing all banks for any current or past practices that effectively barred customers on the basis of political or religious belief. Wednesday, the OCC released its report, saying that it had found conclusive proof that nine large banks had policies that either refused services to some industries...

One of the world’s largest banks was notified on Monday morning that its cooperation with the Biden administration’s partisan Arctic Frost probe is now under investigation by Florida’s attorney general, The Daily Wire can first report. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier told JPMorgan Chase in a Monday morning letter reviewed by The Daily Wire that it had “grave concerns” about the bank’s actions relating to Trump Media, the Florida-based company that operates Truth Social. The investigation was prompted by information released by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which disclosed last month that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Arctic Frost investigation into Donald...

Weren’t we assured that Barack Obama went “into and out of office with not a whiff of scandal”? Yes we were. Former Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen told us so, as did many others. But it wasn’t true. There are many, the most recent a claim that Obama, and then Joe Biden, pressured bank executives to deny services to conservatives. It’s a serious charge that, like the Russia hoax, makes Watergate look like a sandbox squabble. Here’s what we’ve learned: According to Fox Business, major bank executives said “they were under pressure by the Obama and Biden administrations to deny...

In the wake of President Donald Trump's executive order outlawing debanking, major bank executives told Fox News Digital that they were under pressure by the Obama and Biden administrations to deny services to individuals and businesses for political reasons. "Those pressures were very, very real. When your regulator gives you a suggestion, it’s not a suggestion, it’s an order. The political stuff is very real, those pressures are real," a senior banking executive told Fox News Digital. Debanking refers to the practice of banks closing accounts or denying services to individuals or businesses, often with no explanation. The practice originated...

Less than one percent of customers who filed detailed complaints about checking or savings account closures with the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over the last 13 years accused banks of acting for political or religious reasons, even as the White House mounts a campaign to stamp out "systemic abuses" in the financial system that it says have wronged conservatives, a review of the agency's data shows. U.S. President Donald Trump earlier this month signed an executive order requiring banks not to discriminate against clients on political or religious grounds, a practice known as debanking, after citing what Trump called...

The scale of the effort to “debank” Donald Trump because of pressure from Biden administration regulators went far beyond JPMorgan and Bank of America, The Post has learned. At least 10 other financial institutions closed their windows to the billionaire real estate tycoon over his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill ­melee. The moves came in the months after Trump left the White House in 2021, sources inside the Trump Organization told me. The stunning scale of the blacklisting is being revealed here for the first time. ... It should be reported as much as possible for the simple...

In the West, we keep our money in banks, not under mattresses or wall safes. Banks are safe and convenient, and they pay us interest on the money we store with them, because they then lend that money out and make a profit by charging interest to borrowers. That’s a good thing, as Jimmy Stewart explained in It’s a Wonderful Life. What helps power our economy is that we essentially loan our money to banks so that they can loan it to others who, in turn, can invest in the small business infrastructure that makes America grow.When dictators wish to...

“Debanking” seems like something out of paranoid dystopian fiction, but this horrific abuse of government power is already all too real. We’re almost glad the Biden crew deployed it against then-former-President Donald Trump in 2021: That not only ensures he’s aware of this outrage; it points to how even the powerful are vulnerable. It’s as simple as it is scary: Government regulators give a quiet nod to financial institutions that certain people or industries are to be “unpersoned,” and pretty soon they get the same treatment as North Korean tyrants, terrorists or drug kingpins: locked out of the financial system,...

Eva Chipiuk, a lawyer known for her involvement in the Freedom Convoy and vocal criticism of Canadian institutions, has been blindsided after the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) terminated its banking relationship with her, citing risk-related concerns. According to an official letter the banking institution sent to Chipiuk, her “recent activity was outside of RBC’s client risk appetite,” and it would “no longer be in a position to continue serving her.” The bank has given her until August 18, 2025, to find an alternative financial institution. Chipiuk says the move came after a flagged transaction involving a bitcoin purchase. “The...

Countless truckers gathered for the 2022 Freedom Convoy in Ottawa, forming a gridlock, with a clear agenda and request to repeal all COVID mandates. The protest was peaceful and no one was injured. They fought on behalf of the world at a time when the global population was imprisoned by mandates that were later revealed to be falsified without any scientific backing. Then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau evoked the 1988 Emergencies Act, which is intended for an “urgent and critical situation” that “seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians.” Deeming a peaceful protest an act of terrorism is...