While attorneys for the Trump Organization, led by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, have alleged Capital One closed more than 300 Trump-linked accounts in 2021 over politics, lawyers for the defendants wrote in a Friday court filing that the financial institution closed the accounts “for anti-money laundering” reasons.
“The closures were the result of months of analysis and a careful review by Capital One’s [anti-money laundering] team in accordance with bank policies and regulatory guidance,” added the 23-page motion, filed in federal court in the Southern District of Florida.
“Capital One 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 continued.
The Hill has reached out to Capitol One and the Trump Organization for comment.
The president and his allies have accused major financial institutions of “debanking” prominent conservatives over their political views. Earlier this year, President Trump sued JPMorgan Chase for closing his accounts in 2021 and sought at least $5 billion in damages.
U.S. District Judge Roy Altman in March granted Capital One’s motion to dismiss the initial lawsuit brought by the president’s trust against the bank. But Altman, whom President Trump appointed, gave the plaintiffs a “limited discovery period” to refile the suit, Friday’s filing from Capital One noted.
“Now, after more than three months of discovery, Plaintiffs’ Second Amended Complaint (‘SAC’) suffers from the same fundamental flaws as their prior two pleadings and should be dismissed for many of the same reasons set forth in this Court’s prior dismissal,” attorneys for Capital One wrote.
The filing also argues that the plaintiffs “cannot meaningfully criticize the robust process” by which Capital One’s anti-money laundering team undertook before closing the accounts.
Roughly two months before it closed the Trump Organization’s affiliated accounts, Capital One received a $390,000 penalty from the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network — issued after the bank admitted to failing to implement an effective anti-money laundering program.
But in asking Altman to dismiss the second lawsuit entirely, thereby barring the Trump Organization from filing another complaint, lawyers for Capital One wrote the bank’s anti-money laundering team leveraged its “decades of law enforcement experience” and closed the Trump-affiliated accounts in a lawful manner.
“Instead, Plaintiffs attempt to keep their misguided allegations of political discrimination alive by speculating that Capital One’s anti-money laundering concerns were pretextual and claiming that Plaintiffs were somehow ‘misled’ by the contractually permitted closure decision,” the attorneys added.
