JPMorgan Chase acknowledged for the first time that it closed the bank accounts of United States President Donald Trump and several of his companies following the political and legal fallout from the January 6, 2021 attacks on the US Capitol. It is the latest development in a legal saga between the president and the country’s largest bank over the issue known as “debanking”.
The acknowledgment came in a court document filed this week in Trump’s lawsuit against the bank and its leader, Jamie Dimon. The president sued for $5 billion, claiming his accounts were closed for political reasons, disrupting his business operations.
“In February 2021, JPMorgan informed Plaintiffs that certain accounts maintained at JPMorgan’s CB and PB would be closed,” former JPMorgan managing director Dan Wilkening wrote in the court document. “PB” and “CB” stand for JPMorgan Private Bank and Commercial Bank.
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Until now, JPMorgan had never admitted in writing that it closed the president’s accounts after January 6. The bank only talked hypothetically about when it closes accounts and its reasons for closing them, citing banking privacy laws.
A spokeswoman for the bank declined to comment beyond what the bank said in its legal documents.
Trump originally sued JPMorgan in Florida state court, where Trump’s primary residence is now located. This week’s documents are part of an effort by JPMorgan Chase to move the case from state to federal court and transfer jurisdiction of the case to New York, where the bank accounts were located and where Trump maintained much of his business operations until recently.
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Trump originally accused the bank of commercial defamation and violating state and federal unfair and deceptive business practices.
In the original filing, Trump said he tried to raise the issue personally with Dimon after the bank sent him notices that JPMorgan would close its accounts, and that Dimon assured Trump he would find out what was going on. The lawsuit alleges that Dimon did not follow Trump.
Additionally, Trump’s lawyers allege that JPMorgan placed the president and his companies on a reputational blacklist that both JPMorgan and other banks use to prevent customers from opening accounts with them in the future. The list has not yet been defined by the president’s lawyers.
JPMorgan has previously said that while it regrets that Trump felt the need to sue the bank, the lawsuit is without merit.
This is not the first lawsuit Trump has filed against a major bank alleging it has been debanked. The Trump Organization sued credit card giant Capital One in March 2025 for similar reasons and allegations. The case is ongoing.
