House Oversight chair: Banks will face 'a lot of questions' over alleged debanking of conservatives

A leading House Republican is signaling that his committee is set to investigate claims that some individuals and entities were debanked by financial institutions because of their connection to conservative political causes.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., appeared on “Sunday Morning Futures” and addressed claims that conservatives have been debanked by leading financial institutions. The discussion occurred after President Donald Trump raised concerns about debanking during remarks to the World Economic Forum.

“We’ve heard numerous instances of conservatives being debanked and what we want to know is, is this a process of the bank’s ESG policy, or is this our government stepping in like what we found with Twitter and Facebook, where the government stepped in and said they wanted certain conservatives deplatformed and censored, and certain conservative content removed,” Comer said.

“We want to know, again, is this the government involvement – another dirty trick by Joe Biden’s administration – or is this just bad liberal policy that discriminates against conservatives by the banks,” he added.

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Bartiromo asked if Comer has evidence of banks cutting ties with conservative clients, and the chairman said he does.

“Yes, especially people that were involved in different energy-type businesses as well as very outspoken conservative activists. So there are numerous instances, enough to open an investigation,” he replied. 

“Again, is this ESG policy – which is discriminatory and ironically, the Democrats have passed all this banking legislation that prohibits discrimination – is this discriminatory because of ESG, or is it the government, are the bank examiners, as President Trump hinted in his remarks you played earlier, are these bank examiners with a wink and a nod saying, ‘Don’t let this person bank at your bank,'” Comer said.

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The chairman said banks are “going to be asked a lot of questions,” and added, “I will say this for the banks, during the Biden influence peddling investigation the banks were the one entity that did cooperate with us. So I expect that the banks will cooperate with our questions, and hopefully we can get some answers.”

“At the very least we want to change this,” Comer said. “We’re not talking about debanking meaning they denied a loan, that happens every day in the banking world. This is just opening up savings accounts and checking accounts. I mean this is unheard of to do this, and it’s against the law – the laws, ironically, that the Democrats created against discrimination.”

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Federal laws and financial regulations can prompt banks to close accounts over concerns about things like money laundering or illicit financial activities. 

Trump’s debanking comments at the WEF were directed at Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan as well as JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. Both banks have disputed allegations that politics contributed to decisions to close bank accounts.

“We serve more than 70 million clients, and we welcome conservatives,” a Bank of America spokesperson told FOX Business. “We are required to follow extensive government rules and regulations that sometimes result in decisions to exit client relationships. We never close accounts for political reasons, and don’t have a political litmus test.”

A JPMorgan spokesperson said in a statement that the bank would “never close an account for political reasons, full stop. We follow the law and guidance from our regulators and have long said there are problems with the current framework that Washington must address.”

Dimon appeared on JPMorgan Chase’s “The Unshakeables” podcast and said in a discussion about challenges that crypto firms have encountered with debanking that banks are not allowed to tell clients why they were debanked and had their accounts closed.

“I think we should be allowed to tell you,” Dimon said. “When we report stuff, the federal government should probably know about it, and there should be far clearer lines about what we have to do and what we don’t have to do or things like that.”