Capital One Financial responded to a lawsuit over its decision to close the Trump Organization’s bank accounts, saying the closures followed a review by its anti-money-laundering experts. This is the first time a bank has formally linked money-laundering concerns to Donald Trump’s family business.
The bank made the statement as part of a filing seeking to dismiss the lawsuit. Capital One is challenging claims that it illegally debanked the Trump Organization, meaning it denied the company services for religious or political reasons.
Capital One has not accused the Trump Organization of money laundering itself. But in Friday’s filing, the bank said its review process led to the account closures, reports The Guardian.
Bank says closures followed months of internal review
According to the filing, “documents and Plaintiffs’ own allegations make clear that Capital One closed Plaintiffs’ accounts for anti-money laundering (‘AML’) reasons.” The filing also stated, “The closures were the result of months of analysis and a careful review by Capital One’s AML team in accordance with bank policies and regulatory guidance.”
Capital One gave notice in March 2021 that it planned to close more than 300 bank accounts linked to the Trump Organization. The Trump Organization and Eric Trump, the president’s son, filed a lawsuit in a Florida federal court in March 2025. They alleged that Capital One closed the accounts because of the bank’s “woke” beliefs and a desire to benefit from the political mood following the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol.
In its response, Capital One said the claims of political motivation were “misguided” and “based on cherry-picked quotations unsupported by the full context” of documents submitted to the court. The bank added, “The transaction patterns identified by Capital One are among the types of activity flagged by federal banking guidance.”
Neither the Trump Organization nor Capital One immediately responded to requests for comment from Reuters. The lawsuit comes during a period in which the Trump administration has raised concerns about debanking practices at large financial institutions.
Trump signed an executive order in August 2025 barring discriminatory debanking. In January, Trump filed a separate lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase on similar grounds. Trump has also pursued a related legal fight elsewhere, after tax return information was leaked to reporters, which led him to sue the IRS and the Treasury Department.
This is not the first legal dispute between Trump and Capital One. In 2019, during his first term as president, Trump sued Capital One and Deutsche Bank in an attempt to stop them from sharing his financial records with Congress. That effort was part of a congressional investigation led by Democratic lawmakers at the time.
According to reports, anti-money-laundering professionals at Deutsche Bank had flagged a separate set of transactions related to Trump, but bank executives did not act on those warnings. Deutsche Bank denied this report when it surfaced. Separately, reports have also emerged about talks to end IRS audits tied to Trump and his family’s businesses, as part of a possible settlement in that IRS lawsuit.
Published: Aug 2, 2026 09:00 am