Capital One says it closed Trump Organization accounts over money-laundering concerns

Capital One Seeks Permanent Dismissal of Trump Organization Lawsuit Over Account Closures

Ecorescuezone.com – Capital One Bank has formally requested that a federal judge permanently dismiss litigation brought by the Trump Organization, which contends the bank wrongfully terminated hundreds of accounts in 2021. In newly submitted court documents, the financial institution maintains that the closures resulted from an extensive anti-money-laundering investigation rather than political retaliation following the January 6 Capitol riot, contrary to assertions made by Trump family businesses.

The Legal Battle Unfolds

During a motion to dismiss filed on Friday within a Florida federal court, Capital One’s legal representatives emphasized that both the bank’s own documentation and the Trump businesses’ own allegations demonstrate the closures were driven by anti-money-laundering considerations. The bank characterized its decision-making process as involving “months of analysis and a careful review” conducted by a financial-crimes team composed of personnel possessing “decades of law enforcement experience.”

However, court filings indicate that the Trump Organization and related entities received no meaningful opportunity to respond to potential money-laundering or compliance issues prior to having their accounts terminated. This lack of prior notification has become a point of contention in the ongoing dispute.

Scope of the Affected Accounts

The litigation involves approximately 385 accounts connected to the Trump Organization, Eric Trump, and various affiliated commercial ventures. These entities included a winery operation, a bottled-water enterprise, and a golf course development company—all of which maintained banking relationships with Capital One for over ten years before the mid-2021 shutdowns occurred.

In an amended complaint submitted earlier in July, Trump-affiliated companies maintained that the account terminations bore no relation to financial crime or money-laundering concerns whatsoever. Instead, they argued the closures were entirely politically motivated.

The Trump Organization alleges Capital One moved to distance itself from Donald Trump after the Capitol riot and that the bank’s cited anti-money-laundering rationale was invented after the fact to cover for that decision.

Capital One’s Defense

Capital One has categorically rejected these claims. Its attorneys contend in the latest filing that the Trump theory relies upon “cherry-picked quotations unsupported by the full context” of the bank’s internal records. Furthermore, the bank argues that nothing within the complaint substantiates the notion that the anti-money-laundering explanation served as a post-hoc cover story.

The bank’s legal team also highlighted that Capital One maintained confidentiality regarding its closure reasoning at the time. The institution “never publicized the termination decision nor its confidential internal process giving rise to the closure,” while providing the Trump companies with several months—along with multiple extensions—to relocate their funds, which they ultimately accomplished.

Procedural Developments and Sealing Orders

Substantial portions of the Trump-linked amended complaint from July remain obscured under a court-approved sealing order. This includes an entire section designated as “January 6, 2021: The Political Trigger.”

Beyond challenging the factual basis of the Trump claims, Capital One has reaffirmed its contractual authority to terminate any account “at any time, for any or no reason and without notice”—a provision that the Trump companies have not contested.

Presiding Judge Roy Altman previously dismissed an earlier iteration of the lawsuit in March on comparable grounds, determining that a bank’s justification for closing accounts under such broad contractual language typically cannot be subject to judicial second-guessing.

Capital One has now asked Altman to grant permanent dismissal of the current complaint, preventing the Trump Organization from filing another version of the case.

Bank Secrecy Act Considerations

The institution is also countering a fresh allegation added by the plaintiffs in July: that Capital One committed fraud by remaining silent about its closure rationale. Capital One’s attorneys maintain the bank carried no duty to provide explanations initially. Additionally, they argue that federal banking-secrecy legislation would have prohibited the bank from revealing internal anti-money-laundering conclusions even had it wished to do so.

This secrecy statute features prominently in a parallel dispute concerning public access to information. In a separate motion submitted Friday, Capital One requested that the court maintain sealed status for a segment of one exhibit containing data protected under the Bank Secrecy Act, alongside employee identifiers, customer account numbers, and unrelated compensation information.

While the Trump companies have not objected to sealing the account numbers or a specific Bank Secrecy Act-related passage, they are challenging several additional redactions that Capital One seeks to preserve.

It remains uncertain whether subsequent financial institutions serving the Trump Organization have raised comparable money-laundering questions, or what remedial actions the organization undertook in response to Capital One’s specific allegations. The Trump Organization did not promptly address a request for comment regarding these matters.

This litigation represents one among multiple lawsuits initiated by Trump-aligned entities against major banking institutions since Donald Trump’s return to the presidency.