Political Debanking Ran Rampant At America’s Biggest Banks, Federal Probe Alleges

America’s largest banks maintained policies that disadvantaged customers over their political beliefs, religious affiliations and lawful business activities, according to a sweeping federal investigation released Wednesday.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) found that all nine major banks it examined maintained policies between 2020 and September 2025 that could encourage discriminatory banking decisions. The investigation, ordered under President Donald Trump’s 2025 executive order, documented instances of both conservative and left-leaning organizations being denied financial services, raising concerns about banks allowing political considerations to override objective financial risks.

The investigation examined JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC Bank, TD Bank and BMO Bank. Regulators reviewed approximately 420,000 pages of bank documents, nearly 100,000 complaints and hundreds of individual banking decisions.

“Today’s report provides irrefutable evidence that the nation’s largest banks have denied, debanked and discriminated against customers and lawful businesses,” Comptroller Jonathan Gould said in a statement.

The OCC found that banks relied on subjective reputation-risk policies that allowed employees to consider political affiliations, public controversy and the views of advocacy organizations when deciding whether to provide financial services. Restrictions also affected lawful businesses involved in firearms manufacturing, coal mining, oil and gas production, tobacco and digital assets.

In one instance, PNC declined a line of credit to a media company after employees raised concerns about its owners’ conservative political affiliations. The company was growing financially, and its relationship manager had not identified specific credit concerns at the time, according to the report.

Capital One also declined banking opportunities involving organizations on both sides of the political spectrum. The bank rejected potential relationships with reproductive-rights organizations and a public education group whose political arm endorsed exclusively Democratic candidates. One employee noted that approximately 95% of an abortion-rights organization’s political contributions went to Democrats. Capital One also declined a potential relationship with a gun-rights organization.

The investigation additionally found that JPMorgan Chase repeatedly declined to provide commercial financial services to a conservative-leaning retailer between 2021 and 2023. Employees subsequently modified internal records documenting those decisions, removing politically charged descriptions including “right-wing.”

A JPMorgan spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the records were updated following subsequent reviews.