Florida’s Republican attorney general is launching an investigation into JPMorgan in an effort to boost President Donald Trump’s allegations that he and his family were victims of a “debanking” scheme following his efforts to fuel the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, whose reelection bid has been endorsed by Trump, announced Monday that he has opened an investigation into the Trump family allegations. “While coordinating with Jack Smith in the Biden DOJ’s Operation Arctic Frost, JP Morgan de-banked the Florida-based Trump Media Group, harming the company just before it went public,” Uthmeier said.
JPMorgan will “follow the law in responding to subpoenas from the government and will continue to do so,” a company spokesperson said in a statement to right-wing website the Daily Wire, without addressing the allegations directly.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said on a podcast appearance in January that “We have not debanked anyone because of political or religious relationships, period,” but, according to Yahoo Finance, he suggested that “rules such as the Bank Secrecy Act discourage banks from dealing with customers that are considered high-risk.”
The Florida probe is the latest politically driven investigation motivated by unsubstantiated claims and bogus accusations that conservatives have promoted about Smith’s probe.
“Debanking” is the term Trump and other conservatives have used to refer to political discrimination ostensibly practiced by banks against conservatives. Those complaining about debanking have offered little evidence to support their claims. “Less than one percent of customers who filed detailed complaints about checking or savings account closures with the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over the last 13 years accused banks of acting for political or religious reasons,” Reuters reported in August.
A Southern Poverty Law Center post helps explain how conservatives have promoted debanking conspiracy theories, alleging bias against right-wing Christians, among others. And earlier this year, numerous writers debunked the conspiracy theory after Trump signed an executive order targeting debanking.
ProPublica reported that that the “cause hits close to home for the president, whose family business sued Capital One earlier this year, alleging, without providing evidence, that hundreds of its accounts were closed in the summer of 2021 ‘as a result of political discrimination.’”
Uthmeier, meanwhile, is also using his office to fight a lawsuit seeking to force Miami Dade College to hold a public meeting on its decision to hand over valuable real estate to be used for the development of Trump’s presidential library.