Capital One Says Anti-Money Laundering Probe Prompted Trump Organization Account Closures

Capital One Financial has formally stated that it closed more than 300 accounts belonging to the Trump Organization following an internal review by its anti-money laundering experts, marking the first time a bank has publicly tied such concerns to President Donald Trump’s family business.

The disclosure came in a court filing on Friday as the bank seeks to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the Trump Organization and Eric Trump, the president’s son, who allege the accounts were shut down for political reasons.

While Capital One has never accused the Trump Organization of illegal money laundering, the filing argues that “documents and Plaintiffs’ own allegations make clear that Capital One closed Plaintiffs’ accounts for anti-money laundering (‘AML’) reasons”.

The bank emphasized that 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 first notified the Trump Organization of its intention to close the accounts in March 2021.

The Trump Organization and Eric Trump filed their lawsuit in March 2025 in a Florida federal court, alleging the accounts were closed because of Capital One’s “woke” beliefs and its desire to benefit from the political climate following the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

The federal court in Miami has already dismissed two versions of the complaint but allowed the plaintiffs to submit amended filings.

In Friday’s filing, Capital One described the Trump Organization’s allegations of political pretext as “misguided” and “based on cherry-picked quotations unsupported by the full context” of documents submitted to the court. The bank added that “the transaction patterns identified by Capital One are among the types of activity flagged by federal banking guidance”.

The dispute unfolds as the Trump administration has intensified scrutiny of alleged “debanking” by major financial institutions, with Trump signing an executive order in August 2025 barring discriminatory debanking and filing a separate lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase on similar grounds in January.