Bank executives have revealed how they were politically pressured by previous administrations.
“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,” Fox Business reported Monday.
Conservative and religious groups have long accused banks of discriminating against them in a practice called “debanking,” as accounts or services were closed or denied for no evident reason other than the political or religious beliefs of the individual or business.
Better late than never.
For years, Big Banks insisted politicized debanking was a myth. Now, on the heels of @POTUS’s EO, their own executives admit the truth.
This is the moment for lawmakers to act. State and federal laws—like the ones we advanced in TN & ID—must back up…
— Jeremy Tedesco (@Jeremy_Tedesco) August 19, 2025
“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,” one senior banking executive told Fox News Digital.
One executive at a leading U.S. bank, who asked to remain anonymous, explained that “banks were pressured to deny services to certain industries as part of Operation Choke Point and Operation Choke Point 2.0.”
“When there’s ambiguity in the law, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and for a long time the beholder was the Obama and Biden administration,” the official said.
According to Fox Business:
Another senior banking executive said that negative news coverage was considered criteria for “reputational risk.” During the period between the 2020 presidential election and Trump’s return to the Oval Office in 2024, he was subject to a flurry of lawsuits and negative press. Banks, according to the official, responding to the wishes of regulators, would use the negative press directed at conservatives as a pretext to debank them.
“It’s all kind of set up, it’s like somebody set the table, and it all ends up focusing on Republicans and conservatives,” the executive said.
In addition, “banks were under constant regulatory pressure to file more ‘suspicious activity reports,’ reports submitted to the Treasury about unusual banking activity, and to debank more customers,” the exec told the outlet.
“The first banking executive said that while regulators may have good intentions, their worldviews would inevitably influence their decisions and that there were ‘real reasons to think there was political considerations.’ Rather than get on the wrong side of the regulators, banks would preemptively refuse to take certain clients,” the report continued.
“It’s better for us to just not take on certain business if we suspect an examiner can come in and say six months ago you shouldn’t have taken this client,” the bank official told Fox News Digital.
A JPMorgan representative said in a statement: “We don’t close accounts for political reasons, and we agree with President Trump that regulatory change is desperately needed. We’re pleased to see the White House is addressing this issue, for which we’ve been advocating for many years, and look forward to working with them to get this right.”
WATCH: President Donald Trump calls out JP Morgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon for DEBANKING him.
“The banks discriminated against me very badly… they discriminate against many conservatives.” pic.twitter.com/2tHaT4csdd
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) August 5, 2025
Trump signed the “Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans” order last week.
“It is the policy of the United States that no American should be denied access to financial services because of their constitutionally or statutorily protected beliefs, affiliations, or political views, and to ensure that politicized or unlawful debanking is not used as a tool to inhibit such beliefs, affiliations, or political views,” the order reads in part. “Banking decisions must instead be made on the basis of individualized, objective, and risk-based analyses.”
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Author: Frieda Powers
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