Capital One Financial pushed back on Friday against a lawsuit over its decision to close the Trump Organization’s bank accounts, saying it acted after a review by anti-money-laundering experts. The disclosure marks the first time a bank has formally tied money-laundering concerns to Donald Trump‘s family business.
Capital One is seeking to dismiss the case, casting doubt on claims of illegally debanking the Trump Organization on religious or political grounds. The Trump Organization and Capital One did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In a filing, Capital One argued that “documents and Plaintiffs’ own allegations make clear that Capital One closed Plaintiffs’ accounts for anti-money laundering (AML) reasons.” The bank gave notice of plans to close more than 300 Trump-affiliated accounts in March 2021, and the lawsuit arrived in March 2025 in a Florida federal court. The plaintiffs, including Eric Trump, alleged the closures stemmed from Capital One’s “woke” beliefs and a desire to benefit from political mood after the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol.
Capital One called those allegations “misguided” and “based on cherry-picked quotations unsupported by the full context” of the documents. The filing added that the transaction patterns identified are “among the types of activity flagged by federal banking guidance.”
Since Trump began his second term, his administration has pressured large banks over conservative complaints of targeting. Trump signed an executive order in August 2025 barring discriminatory debanking. In January, he filed a similar suit against JPMorgan Chase, underscoring the fraught environment on Wall Street.
This is not the first time Trump has tangled with banks over financial records. In 2019, he sued Capital One and Deutsche Bank to prevent them from sharing records with Congress. At Deutsche Bank, anti-money-laundering professionals reportedly flagged transactions, but executives ignored them; the bank denied the report.