Capital One tries to get Trump Org case dismissed, denies claim accounts closed over politics

Capital One bank has filed a motion to dismiss the Trump Organization’s lawsuit claiming the U.S. banking heavyweight closed 385 of its accounts based on political retaliation.

The bank said in court documents filed Friday that it closed the accounts over federal money laundering rules – because of a vendetta against plaintiffs President Donald Trump's company, the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust and Trump's son Eric Trump.

The plaintiffs were notified on March 21, 2021, that their accounts would be closed without any recourse, they claim in the initial lawsuit, filed March 7, 2025. They also argue the reason was political retaliation for the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots following former President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election, in which Trump lost reelection. 

Capital One said its silence when the closures initially happened is evidence that the standard anti-money-laundering procedures now in place for banks across the country prevented it from telling the Trump Organization why it was closing the accounts.

Capital One lawyers wrote in the motion that the bank’s own filings and Trump businesses’ allegations “make clear that Capital One closed Plaintiffs’ accounts for anti-money laundering (‘AML’) reasons.”

The bank’s decision to move forward with the closures was the result of “months of analysis and a careful review” by its financial-crimes team, which is apparently staffed with employees who have “decades of law enforcement experience.”

The filings, however, show that The Trump Organization and plaintiffs were never given the chance to address or react to any money-laundering or compliance concerns before the accounts were closed.

Just the News reached both the Trump Organization and Capital One for comment, but did not receive a response by publication.

It’s unclear if other banks for the Trump Organization have raised money laundering concerns or taken any steps to respond to Capital One’s allegations.

The involved accounts were tied to Eric Trump, the Trump Organization and a group of affiliated businesses, which include a winery, a bottled-water company and a golf course developer that banked with Capital One for more than a decade before the 2021 account closures.

Capital One denied assertions that the bank was distancing itself from the Trump Organization following the riots, arguing that theory is actually based on “cherry-picked quotations unsupported by the full context” of the bank’s own records. Nothing in the complaint shows the anti-money-laundering explanation was a cover story, the bank is claiming.

Capital One lawyers also said the bank “never publicized the termination decision nor its confidential internal process giving rise to the closure,” and gave the Trump companies months and several extensions to move money elsewhere, which they complied with.

The motion reiterates that the bank maintains the right to close any account “at any time, for any or no reason and without notice.” 

Additionally, Capital One said it refutes a new claim from the plaintiffs that the bank technically defrauded them by not explaining its reasoning for the closures. Attorneys said there was never an obligation for the bank to explain itself, and argued that federal banking-secrecy law would have barred it from disclosing internal anti-money-laundering findings even if it wanted to.

Katherine Pugh is a reporter for Just the News. Follow her on X for more coverage.