“Big Money in the Morning” analyzes the big banks accused of debanking conservatives. Rep. Ryan Zinke joins to discuss President Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Montana and rising gas prices in the state.
The head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) said Wednesday that his agency had discovered “irrefutable evidence that the the largest banks in the country refused, debanked and discriminated against customers and legal businesses”, particularly because of their political opinions.
Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould made the remark after the OCC said it had investigated debanking activities at the nine largest banks it oversees: JPMorgan Chase Bank, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo Bank, US Bank, Capital One, PNC Bank, TD Bank and BMO Bank. THE practice of unbanking is the denial, restriction or closure of an individual or organization’s access to banking services.
The 47-page OCC report reveals that in February 2021, under the Biden administration, “a bank-owned payment processor closed the account of a merchant who sold merchandise promoting President Trump and the Make America Great Again (MAGA) brand.” And two years later, “a bank refused to provide financial services to a public education organization because of its partisan leanings – namely, the organization’s political arm’s support only for Democratic candidates.”
“Americans should have access to financial services regardless of their beliefs, affiliations or political views,” Gould said in a statement. “Equitable access to financial services is not a mantra, it’s a mandate. The Trump Administration is committed to ending the weaponization of finance against American workers once and for all.”
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President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn as he leaves the White House October 12, 2026 in Washington, DC (Aaron Schwartz/Getty Images/Getty Images)
The report also states: “Fear of being on the wrong side of public opinion has led at least one bank to distance itself from certain customer affiliations that could potentially be seen as partisan.
“Until 2025, a bank’s industry considered a company engaged in ‘partisan activity’ to pose a presumptively high reputational risk. Although the policy appears to have been applied consistently to organizations on both sides of the political spectrum“The bank’s line of business ultimately refused to provide financial services to the organizations simply because of the constitutionally protected views the organizations held,” he said. “In contrast, organizations considered ‘bipartisan’ received services.”
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, R-S.C., told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that the report was “damning.”
“Unbanking Americans for religious or political reasons is simply un-American,” he added. “Expect to hear more from the Banking Committee on this important issue when Congress returns.”
The OCC said it conducted its review pursuant to an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in August 2025, “to determine whether the policies or practices of these banks could have required, encouraged, or influenced the banks to deny or limit access to financial services to Americans because of their political or religious beliefs or their lawful business activities.”
“The OCC’s findings show that between 2020 and September 2025, all nine banks implemented such policies,” the document states.
The White House, after Trump signed the executive order, said the president “believes that no American should be denied access to financial services because of their political or religious beliefs, and that banking decisions should be made solely based on individualized, objective, risk-based analyses.”
Trump has previously said he himself was targeted by debanking efforts, which he said were driven by the political biases of banking regulators. Melania Trump also stated in her memoir that she too had her account closed after many years of banking with a specific banking institution and that Barron Trump was subsequently denied an account after the events of January 6, 2021.
Before the executive order last summer, Wall Street sources told Fox News Digital that Biden administration regulators had pressured big banks to review the accounts for political reasons. Banking regulators operate under the umbrella of a multitude of federal agencies, and sources said that when a regulator speaks, whether in the form of a rule, guidance or even just a conversation, banks have no choice but to listen.
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The facade of the New York Stock Exchange is visible on Wall Street in Lower Manhattan. (Nicolò Campo/LightRocket via Getty Images / Getty Images)
“In the report, the OCC found that broad reputational risk policies – which lacked clear standards and objective risk-based criteria – disadvantaged some Americans because of their political, religious or social views or because of their lawful business activities,” the OCC also said. “The OCC also found that banks maintained public and nonpublic policies restricting certain industry sectors’ access to financial services, including those in oil and gas exploration, coal mining or coal-fired power plants, the manufacturing or distribution of firearms or ammunition, the construction or operation of detention centers, the manufacturing, distribution, or online retail sale of tobacco or e-cigarettes, and digital asset activities.”
The report was based on “nearly 100,000 complaints filed with OCC-regulated institutions,” while the OCC “also received approximately 50,000 documents comprising approximately 420,000 pages from these banks regarding their policies, procedures, practices and individual customer decisions.”
“The OCC first announced this review of its nine largest banks by asset size in September 2025 and released preliminary findings in December 2025. Today’s report is the latest action the OCC is taking to combat debanking and promote equitable access,” the OCC continued.
The agency said it is “considering measures to prevent banks from discriminating against customers or potential customers on the basis of their political or religious beliefs and to address the problematic role of reputation risk in banks’ decision-making.”
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Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Pa., said the OCC report “exposes how far Biden-era debanking has gone to pressure banks to cut off Americans for their politics, faith and legal business.”
“Thank you to @USComptroller Gould and the OCC for their work to expose these excesses, and I look forward to continuing our work together to ensure that a future administration cannot repeat Biden’s mistakes,” added Meuser, a member of the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services.
People leave the JPMorgan Chase & Co. headquarters in New York in April 2026. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters / Reuters)
Mike Selig, Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), said “Americans will no longer be punished for embracing financial innovation or denied access to the system for exercising their right to choose how they manage their money.”
In a statement to FOX Business, JPMorgan Chase Bank said its policies “prohibit discrimination against customers based on political or religious opinions.”
“The report also addresses a limited number of historical interactions between the nearly 90 million customers and small businesses we serve across the country and around the world,” the bank added. “We take this seriously, we have learned from it and improved the way we do business.
“We agree with the administration on a broader point: Years of operating in a regulatory environment that often questioned decisions have contributed to a culture of caution in banking. This system needs to be fixed,” JPMorgan Chase also said.
Wells Fargo declined to comment. BMO Bank referred FOX Business to a statement from the Bank Policy Institute, which said: “The banking industry supports equitable access to banking services and works to ensure that government regulations and policies enable banks to serve law-abiding customers.
“We look forward to continuing our engagement with the Administration and Congress as they consider additional proposals to ensure that political or religious beliefs do not unfairly affect customers’ access to banking services,” the BPI statement added.
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FOX Business also reached out to Bank of America, Citibank, US Bank, Capital One, PNC Bank and TD Bank for comment.
Amanda Macias of FOX Business contributed to this report.
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