Capital One: Trump Organization accounts closed after money-laundering review

Capital One has responded to a lawsuit over its decision to close hundreds of accounts linked to the Trump Organization, saying the move followed a thorough anti-money-laundering review.

In a court filing on Friday, the bank said its actions were based on months of analysis by its AML team and in line with bank policies and regulatory guidance. It argued that the Trump Organization’s claims of illegal “debanking” on political or religious grounds are unsupported.

The case stems from March 2021, when Capital One notified the Trump Organization that it would close more than 300 accounts. The Trump Organization and Eric Trump, son of President Donald Trump, sued in March 2025 in a Florida federal court, alleging the bank acted because of “woke” beliefs and wanted to benefit from the political climate after the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

In Friday’s filing, Capital One called those accusations “misguided” and said they rely on “cherry-picked quotations” without the full context of documents. The bank said the transaction patterns it identified are among those flagged by federal banking guidance.

Capital One has not formally accused the Trump Organization of money laundering. However, the filing states that documents and the plaintiffs’ own allegations make clear that the closures were for AML reasons. This is the first time a bank has formally connected money-laundering concerns to the Trump family business in a legal filing.

The dispute is part of a broader conflict between the former president and large financial institutions. Trump’s administration has pressured major banks, echoing conservative complaints that they target the political right. In August 2025, Trump signed an executive order banning discriminatory debanking. In January, he filed a similar lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase.

Earlier, in 2019, Trump sued Capital One and Deutsche Bank to prevent them from handing his financial records to Congress during an investigation led by Democratic lawmakers. At the time, Deutsche Bank denied a report that its anti-money-laundering staff had flagged suspicious transactions but that executives had ignored the alerts.