President Donald Trump walks with Eric Trump as they put together to depart on Marine One from the South Garden of the White Home, Friday, April 10, 2026, in Washington.
Alex Brandon/AP
cover caption
toggle caption
Alex Brandon/AP
Capital One financial institution has requested a federal decide to dismiss a lawsuit from the Trump Group over the closure of lots of of financial institution accounts again in 2021, arguing in new papers that the shutdowns had been the product of a monthslong anti-money-laundering evaluation — not retaliation for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, because the Trump household companies have claimed.
In a movement to dismiss the case filed Friday in a Florida federal court docket, Capital One’s legal professionals wrote that the financial institution’s personal filings and the Trump companies’ allegations “clarify that Capital One closed Plaintiffs’ accounts for anti-money laundering (‘AML’) causes.”
The financial institution mentioned the choice adopted “months of research and a cautious evaluation” by its financial-crimes staff, which it mentioned was staffed by staff with “many years of legislation enforcement expertise.” However the filings recommend the Trump Group and affiliated entities got no alternative to deal with any money-laundering or compliance considerations earlier than the accounts’ closures.
It is unclear if subsequent banks for the Trump Group have ever raised cash laundering considerations, or what steps the group took in response to Capital One’s allegations. The Trump Group did not instantly reply to a request for remark.
The combat is one in all a number of lawsuits Trump-aligned entities have introduced towards main banks since Trump returned to the White Home.
A yearslong dispute over lots of of accounts
The case facilities on roughly 385 accounts tied to the Trump Group, Eric Trump and a set of affiliated companies — together with a vineyard, a bottled-water firm and a golf course developer — that banked with Capital One for greater than a decade earlier than the accounts had been shut down in mid-2021.
In an amended grievance filed earlier in July, the Trump-affiliated corporations insisted the closures had nothing to do with monetary crime or money-laundering, however all the pieces to do with politics.
The Trump Group alleges Capital One moved to distance itself from Donald Trump after the Capitol riot and that the financial institution’s cited anti-money-laundering rationale was invented after the very fact to cowl for that call.
Capital One has flatly denied these assertions, with its legal professionals arguing within the new submitting that the Trump’s concept rests on “cherry-picked quotations unsupported by the complete context” of the financial institution’s personal information, and that nothing within the grievance exhibits the anti-money-laundering rationalization was a canopy story.
The financial institution’s legal professionals additionally famous that it stored its reasoning for the closures confidential on the time: it “by no means publicized the termination resolution nor its confidential inner course of giving rise to the closure,” and gave the Trump corporations months — plus a number of extensions — to maneuver their cash elsewhere, which they did.
Giant sections of the Trump-linked amended grievance from July stay blacked out below a court-approved sealing order, together with a complete portion titled “January 6, 2021: The Political Set off.”
The financial institution says its contract gave it broad discretion
Past disputing the details, Capital One has reiterated within the new court docket submitting it had the precise to shut any account “at any time, for any or no motive and with out discover” — language the Trump corporations don’t dispute.
The presiding decide, Roy Altman, had already dismissed an earlier model of the lawsuit in March on related grounds, ruling {that a} financial institution’s motive for closing an account below that sort of open-ended contract clause usually can’t be second-guessed in court docket.
Capital One has requested Altman to dismiss the brand new grievance completely this time, with out one other probability to refile.
The financial institution can be pushing again towards a brand new declare the plaintiffs added in July: that Capital One defrauded them by staying silent about its reasoning.
Capital One’s attorneys say the financial institution had no obligation to clarify itself within the first place, and individually argue that federal banking-secrecy legislation would have barred it from disclosing inner anti-money-laundering findings even when it wished to.
A parallel combat over what stays sealed
That secrecy legislation can be on the heart of a associated combat over what the general public will get to see. In a separate movement filed Friday, Capital One requested the court docket to maintain sealed a portion of 1 exhibit that it says incorporates data protected below the Financial institution Secrecy Act, together with worker names, buyer account numbers and unrelated compensation particulars.
The Trump corporations don’t oppose sealing the account numbers or that one Secrecy Act-related passage, however are contesting a number of different redactions Capital One desires to maintain in place.
A separate case towards JPMorgan Chase, filed in January over accounts closed in the identical interval, makes related claims.
President Trump signed an government order final August directing regulators to crack down on what he and different conservatives name politically motivated ‘debanking.’
Capital One itself has tangled with Trump earlier than: in 2019, throughout his first time period, the president sued the financial institution alongside Deutsche Financial institution to dam them each from turning over his monetary information to a Democratic-led congressional inquiry.
