President Trump escalated his feud with JPMorgan Chase on Saturday, threatening to sue the banking behemoth in the next two weeks for abruptly closing his accounts after the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, under pressure from the Biden administration.
JPMorgan is wrong for “incorrectly and inappropriately DEBANKING me after the January protest, a protest that turned out to be correct for those doing the protesting,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social.
The split came after decades-long ties — and the bank gave him just 20 days to move hundreds of millions of dollars, Trump has said.
The threat comes as JPMorgan has emerged as one of the most vocal critics of the Trump Justice Department’s criminal probeinto Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, with JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warning that undermining the Fed’s independence could backfire by raising inflation expectations and interest rates.
At the same time, the White House has taken aim at banks’ profits, pushing a proposal to cap credit card interest rates at 10% for a year — a move JPMorgan executives have warned could restrict access to credit and hurt consumers.
Trump’s lawsuit threat revives a years-old grievance tied to his abrupt removal from JPMorgan after he left office in 2021, a move he has long described as politically motivated.
As The Post exclusively reported at the time, JPMorgan and Bank of America cut ties with Trump following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot after pressure from Biden’s banking regulators, who warned financial institutions that continuing to do business with controversial figures could expose them to heightened scrutiny under so-called “reputational risk” rules.
Sources familiar with the decision told The Post at the time that regulators at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the FDIC and the Federal Reserve signaled that banking Trump could create compliance problems tied to appearances, even absent any criminal wrongdoing.
JPMorgan has said it does not close accounts for political reasons, but did not deny that reputational risk considerations played a role in decisions made during that period, as banks faced the threat of increased oversight, fines and regulatory action.
Trump has argued the move amounted to financial punishment. The Post has reached out to JPMorgan.
Trump also dismissed a Wall Street Journal report that he had offered JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon the job of Federal Reserve chair as “totally untrue.”
The Journal is owned by Dow Jones — a subsidiary of The Post’s corporate parent News Corp. The Post has sought comment from The Journal.
