The dirty truth about JPMorgans debanking of Trump and why legislation is needed

JPMorgan still won’t say exactly why it “debanked” Donald Trump, but the sordid details of what happened five years ago are worth a closer look – and point to the need for legislation to make sure it never happens again.The latest news in this Orwellian saga is that the president last month sued JPMorgan and its CEO Jamie Dimon for closing around 50 of his accounts in February 2021, less than a month after Trump’s first term ended.In court documents, JPM has admitted that it told Trump to “find a more suitable institution with which to conduct business.”Here’s where things get tricky.

JPM doesn’t exactly say why Trump, a billionaire with a global business after serving a four-year term in the White House, is so unsuitable.Jamie Dimon, in recent statements to Fox News, didn’t answer that key question either, merely stating that JPM doesn’t “debank people for religious or political affiliations.”What he’s leaving out is that while JPM may not debank people based on politics, banking regulators — JPM’s former masters in the Biden administration — stepped in following the Capitol riot.

They began pounding the table that the banks should stop doing business with The Donald and the Trump Organization based on something known as “reputational risk.” It was a dubious idea to say the least, as I’ll unpack shortly.Nevertheless, apparently it seemed easier to kick Trump to the curb than go to bat for him.And it wasn’t just Trump in the crosshairs.

Crypto got the “RR treatment” as well.Ditto for any business involving guns.

In Trump’s case the reputational risk edicts came down after the Jan.6 melee where Biden’s bank cops put the squeeze not just on JPM but also the nation’s second largest bank, BofA and eight others that followed suit.We don’t want banks to facilitate sex trafficking, of course, though there are money laundering laws on the books that banks like JPM ignored as they platformed Jeffrey Epstein nearly t...