A federal banking review found nine of the nation’s largest banks closed accounts and cut credit to Trump supporters, Christian groups, and firearms businesses they treated as reputation risks during the Biden years.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency released a 47-page Debanking Review titled “Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans,” detailing how major banks used “reputation risk” screens to deny service between 2020 and 2025. The same day, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced a parallel investigation into whether those practices broke federal consumer financial law.
Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan V. Gould and CFPB Acting Director Mark Paoletta framed the findings as systematic targeting of customers whose politics, faith, or industry clashed with the priorities of the Biden administration and its allies. The banks named in the review are JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC, TD Bank, and BMO Bank.
The New York Post reported that OCC staff examined roughly 100,000 complaints and about 50,000 internal bank records before publishing the findings. All nine banks told regulators they had revised their practices. The OCC said the changes still fall short and that no bank had fully and publicly acknowledged what it called the weaponization of finance against ordinary Americans.
Gould did not hedge. He cast the document as hard proof that the country’s biggest banks denied service and discriminated against lawful customers and businesses.
"Today’s report provides irrefutable evidence that the nation’s largest banks have denied, debanked and discriminated against customers and lawful businesses,"
Gould said, adding that the OCC is weighing further action to stop discrimination based on political or religious beliefs.
Paoletta went further, tying the pattern to the prior administration’s politics and pledging enforcement against the institutions featured in the review and others.
"It is appalling that these banks targeted American consumers for their political, social, or religious beliefs that did not align with the Biden Administration or its leftist allies,"
Paoletta said. He added that many of those targeted were supporters of President Trump, called the tactics thuggish, and said they have no place in America. The CFPB, he said, will fully investigate whether the banks complied with federal consumer financial laws and will take appropriate action. The bureau holds primary supervisory and enforcement authority over banks with more than $10 billion in assets.
According to the OCC summary, banks cited reputation risk when they feared negative press, protests, criticism from advocacy groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, or reprisals from regulators and politicians. That elastic standard reached Christian organizations over abortion, LGBTQ issues, and traditional family values. It also hit industries labeled “disfavored,” including firearms makers and retailers, Arctic oil and gas, coal, detention facilities, tobacco, and e-cigarettes.
Internal notes show the political filter in plain language. A PNC employee argued against a credit line to a media company after an ESG group flagged one owner’s foundation for funding Christian conservative groups, including several the SPLC had labeled hate groups, and branded another owner a conservative political commentator.
"I think it becomes really difficult to justify aligning ourselves with a company whose owners have built very public personas around opinions very contrary to PNC’s beliefs/values."
Wells Fargo’s files were just as blunt on guns. The bank declined to lend to two firearms businesses. Employees worried about blowback from the Biden administration, anti-gun activists, and members of Congress. One reputation-risk review note put the political climate in writing.
"Under the Biden administration, banks could face greater supervisory pressure to move away from lending to the firearms industry,"
the Wells Fargo note said. Wells Fargo also pressured a payment processor to drop a religious nonprofit over its views on same-sex marriage.
JPMorgan Chase’s payment arm WePay offered some of the clearest examples. The unit closed the account of a merchant selling merchandise that promoted President Trump and the MAGA brand, claiming the activity promoted hate, violence, or racial intolerance. Internal screening flagged terms such as “MAGA,” “Make America Great,” and “America First.” Several of those terms were added after the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
WePay also closed accounts for a merchant selling conservative and Republican shirts and hats. Merchandise treated as red flags included a “Biden-Illegitimate” T-shirt, a “The-Big-Lie” sticker, and a “Trump-Won” flag. In another case, the processor cut off payment services for a planned event after bank staff decided the organizer’s posts were an “incitement of hate.” Those posts called Black Lives Matter “Marxists” and labeled President Biden and Anthony Fauci “the enemy.”
A JPMorgan Chase spokesman said the WePay process did not meet the bank’s expectations.
"A process used by WePay, a small technology company we acquired years ago and have since wound down, did not meet our expectations. We identified it, corrected it, and the business no longer operates... Our policies prohibit discrimination against customers based on political or religious views."
Banks leaned on Southern Poverty Law Center hate-group designations. WePay closed the account of a religious organization the SPLC had tagged as an extremist hate group. An internal system described that organization as a “[r]ight wing religious conservative non profit with strong anti LGBTQ rhetoric.” WePay also closed an account used to raise funds for a legal challenge to anti-discrimination laws by a “devout Christian.”
The same SPLC that banks treated as a compliance oracle later faced its own legal storm. The review notes that the SPLC was indicted in April on federal fraud and money-laundering charges, with prosecutors alleging it defrauded donors of millions. FBI Director Kash Patel has called the group a “partisan smear machine.”
Bank of America cut ties with private-prison businesses, citing “changing policymaker attitudes,” then tried to rebuild one of those relationships months into the Trump administration. Capital One’s approach cut both ways on paper and still chilled conservative causes in practice. The bank declined services to partisan entities that backed candidates from a single party. It refused business with an organization promoting “reproductive rights” it saw as synonymous with abortion and Democrats. It also declined services to a gun-rights organization “due to optics that we endorsed its position.”
That last example matters. A bank that claims political neutrality still used “optics” to freeze out a lawful Second Amendment group. The pattern was not random fraud control. It was viewpoint management dressed up as risk management.
President Trump signed an executive order on August 7, 2025, directing federal banking regulators to combat “politicized or unlawful debanking.” The order stated that no American should be denied access to financial services because of constitutionally or statutorily protected beliefs, affiliations, or political views. Trump has also sued JPMorgan Chase, alleging the bank closed accounts in 2021 for political reasons after the Capitol riot. Melania Trump, Eric Trump, Barron Trump, and several Trump businesses have said they were debanked in that period as well. Tech founder Marc Andreessen has claimed entrepreneurs were shut out under a Biden-era posture toward disfavored businesses such as crypto, and that a partner’s father was debanked over conservative views.
Americans who believe they were unfairly cut off can turn to helpwithmybank.gov, the resource flagged in the official response. The OCC’s public release materials are posted through the agency’s newsroom at occ.gov.
Every one of the nine banks now says it has changed course. Regulators say the course correction is incomplete. The CFPB’s investigation will test whether “reputation risk” was a neutral underwriting tool or a political screen aimed at Trump voters, pro-life Christians, gun shops, and anyone else who failed a progressive litmus test.
When banks treat lawful speech and faith as a compliance hazard, they stop being neutral utilities and start acting like political gatekeepers, and federal regulators finally put that record on paper.
