President Donald Trump walks with Eric Trump as they put together to depart on Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House, Friday, April 10, 2026, in Washington.
Alex Brandon/AP
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Alex Brandon/AP
Capital One financial institution has requested a federal choose to dismiss a lawsuit from the Trump Organization over the closure of tons of of financial institution accounts again in 2021, arguing in new papers that the shutdowns have 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 motion to dismiss the case filed Friday in a Florida federal court docket, Capital One’s attorneys wrote that the financial institution’s personal filings and the Trump companies’ allegations “make clear that Capital One closed Plaintiffs’ accounts for anti-money laundering (‘AML’) reasons.”
The financial institution stated the choice adopted “months of analysis and a careful review” by its financial-crimes crew, which it stated was staffed by workers with “decades of law enforcement experience.” But the filings recommend the Trump Organization and affiliated entities got no alternative to handle any money-laundering or compliance concerns earlier than the accounts’ closures.
It’s unclear if subsequent banks for the Trump Organization have ever raised cash laundering concerns, or what steps the group took in response to Capital One’s allegations. The Trump Organization did not instantly reply to a request for remark.
The struggle is certainly one of a number of lawsuits Trump-aligned entities have introduced in opposition to main banks since Trump returned to the White House.
A yearslong dispute over tons of of accounts
The case facilities on roughly 385 accounts tied to the Trump Organization, Eric Trump and a group 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 have been shut down in mid-2021.
In an amended grievance filed earlier in July, the Trump-affiliated firms insisted the closures had nothing to do with monetary crime or money-laundering, however every part to do with politics.
The Trump Organization 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 actual fact to cowl for that call.
Capital One has flatly denied these assertions, with its attorneys arguing within the new submitting that the Trump’s concept rests on “cherry-picked quotations unsupported by the full context” of the financial institution’s personal information, and that nothing within the grievance exhibits the anti-money-laundering clarification was a canopy story.
The financial institution’s attorneys additionally famous that it saved its reasoning for the closures confidential on the time: it “never publicized the termination decision nor its confidential internal process giving rise to the closure,” and gave the Trump firms months — plus a number of extensions — to maneuver their cash elsewhere, which they did.
Large sections of the Trump-linked amended grievance from July stay blacked out underneath a court-approved sealing order, together with a whole portion titled “January 6, 2021: The Political Trigger.”
The financial institution says its contract gave it broad discretion
Beyond disputing the info, 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 reason and without notice” — language the Trump firms don’t dispute.
The presiding choose, Roy Altman, had already dismissed an earlier model of the lawsuit in March on related grounds, ruling {that a} financial institution’s purpose for closing an account underneath 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 likelihood to refile.
The financial institution can also be pushing again in opposition to 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 struggle over what stays sealed
That secrecy legislation can also be on the middle of a associated struggle 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 comprises data protected underneath the Bank Secrecy Act, together with worker names, buyer account numbers and unrelated compensation particulars.
The Trump firms 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 in opposition to JPMorgan Chase, filed in January over accounts closed in the identical interval, makes related claims.
President Trump signed an executive 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 bank alongside Deutsche Bank to dam them each from turning over his monetary information to a Democratic-led congressional inquiry.
