NEW: Capital One Closed Hundreds of Trump Bank Accounts for Anti-Money Laundering Reasons

"A bottled water company, a winery, a golf course, a construction payroll firm, and a real estate brokerage, and hundreds of other businesses" were debanked. Trump claims it was for political reasons.

This is quite the headline. In 2021, Capital One Bank closed hundreds of Trump affiliated accounts for anti-money laundering reasons. Four years later, the Trump Organization and multiple other companies associated with Trump sued Capital One, accusing them of debanking them for political reasons; namely January 6th.

According to the Trump Organization’s heavily redacted lawsuit, companies that were debanked included Trump bottled water, a Trump winery, a golf course, a construction payroll firm, a real estate brokerage, and “hundreds of other” businesses.

Capital One moved the case to federal court, filed a motion to dismiss, and won because the original banking agreement said they could terminate the accounts for any reason. Not only that, the agreement said Capitol One didn’t have to tell the Trump Organization why.

Accordingly, the Court dismissed Trump’s first lawsuit in full, but granted Trump a limited discovery period and permission to re-file his lawsuit, which he did.

A couple of days ago, Capital One responded to Trump’s second attempt at the lawsuit. In it, they give a little of the background of the case:

On March 8, 2021, Capital One notified Plaintiffs by letter of its decision to terminate the account relationships for many, but not all, deposit accounts held by Plaintiffs and their related entities by June 7, 2021.

The letters provided Plaintiffs with three months’ notice prior to the closure of the accounts to allow for the orderly drawdown of funds and the transition of deposits to other financial institutions, and at Plaintiffs’ request Capital One granted extensions beyond the original closure date.

Almost exactly four years later, Plaintiffs filed this lawsuit in Florida state court claiming that the accounts were wrongfully closed for political reasons.

The [second complaint] 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.

At this point, Trump contends that all of the documents he attached to his second complaint - documents he received in discovery from Capital One - somehow prove that the bank closed his accounts for political reasons. Capital One says:

To the contrary, those documents (the discovery sent to the Trump Organization) and Plaintiffs’ own allegations make clear that Capital One closed Plaintiffs’ accounts for anti-money laundering (“AML”) reasons. 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 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.

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.

Next, Capital One lists the reasons that Trump’s second bite at the apple is a total failure:

First, Plaintiffs’ claim for breach of the implied covenant cannot stand under Florida law because the Rules expressly permitted Capital One to close the accounts for any reason and without notice, as Plaintiffs cannot dispute.

Second, Plaintiffs’ argument that the account closure letters give rise to a fraudulent concealment claim fares no better. Plaintiffs were not entitled to any reason for the closure and received none. Capital One has never disclosed the basis for the closure decisions nor impaired Plaintiffs’ ability to obtain accounts with other banks (which discovery to date makes clear Plaintiffs were able to do promptly).

So why are we just now finding out? That’s the best part:

Indeed, Capital One’s decision to close Plaintiffs’ accounts only became public because of Plaintiffs’ own decision to pursue this litigation.

You know how we’re always saying that Trump likes to drop his lawsuits before they get to discovery? Well, he failed to do that here, and now the entire world knows that hundreds of Trump businesses - including a winery, a golf course, bottled water, a payroll company, and a real estate firm - were front companies for money laundering.

You can read Capital One’s entire response here.

So. What’s in your wallet?