By If you are deemed to be a “deplorable” Trump supporter by liberals on Wall Street, you could soon lose your ability to bank at some of the most prominent banks in the United States.
While treated as a “slippery slope” argument by liberals who made jokes about “debunking,” like most slippery slope arguments over the past decade or two, it has come to fruition.
Two major financial institutions have targeted a close adviser to Trump, claiming that “reputational risk” has made them close his accounts without his knowledge, but both have refused to go into detail about their decisions.
John Eastman, once an attorney for former President Donald Trump, was de-banked twice in the span of several months by two prominent financial institutions, Bank of America and USAA, he told the Daily Caller. His accounts were closed as he faced substantial backlash for his work advising Trump around the time of the 2020 election, writes The Daily Caller.
Eastman said he had switched most of his banking from Bank of America to USAA, a company that provides financial services exclusively to military veterans as well as their families, due to the former’s “wokeness.” Both corporations are federally insured, and Bank of America was bailed out with billions of dollars in taxpayer funds during the global financial crisis.
Bank of America alerted Eastman in September of 2023 that it would be closing his accounts, a letter obtained by the Daily Caller shows. Shortly thereafter, USAA notified Eastman in November that his two bank accounts with the company would be closed, a separate letter shows.
Eastman told the outlet that shortly after receiving a letter from Bank of America about the closure of his account, he received a similar notice from USAA, resulting in the closure of their account three weeks later.
He said that he’d been banking with Bank of America for 40 years.
Eric Bledsoe, an expert on de-banking for the Foundation for Government Accountability, told the Daily Caller that the practice has become the latest tactic of the left to attack conservatives.
“What these banks are doing is they’re saying you’re either high risk, or we don’t want to do business with you, or whatever it is. There’s no methodology behind this. There’s no kind of reason that matches traditional indicators or traditional metrics that a bank would use to calculate your liquidity, your credit score, whatever it is. They’re using these non-financial factors, and then making these decisions and just like closing people’s accounts.”
Republicans in various states have begun taking on the banks who believe that being conservative is a good enough reason to prevent them from access to banking.
Fox News reported that “Over a dozen Republican attorneys general are warning a major U.S. bank against alleged practices of “de-banking” certain customers because of their religious or political views.
In a letter obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, along with 14 of his Republican colleagues told Bank of America CEO Brian T. Moynihan that the company “appears to be conditioning access to its services on customers having the bank’s preferred religious or political views.”
“Your discriminatory behavior is a serious threat to free speech and religious freedom, is potentially illegal, and is causing political and regulatory backlash,” the letter sent Monday states. “Your bank needs to be transparent with and assure us, its shareholders, and others that it will not continue to de-bank customers for their speech or religious exercise,” the AGs wrote.
The AGs claim that Bank of America has previously denied services to gun manufacturers, distributors, and sellers, fossil-fuel producers, contractors for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and private prisons and related services.”
They have given Bank of America 30 days to respond to their request that it delivers a “written report about their account-cancellation policies and practices, particularly regarding risk tolerance or “reputational risk.”
Unable to, so far, take down Donald Trump with their lawfare, the left has used its control over supposedly neutral institutions to target Eastman, turning him into a villain because he worked as a lead lawyer for the former president’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
Newsweek noted, “He was forced to retire from the law school where he was a longtime constitutional law professor and even dean. He was let go by the University of Colorado’s Benson Center for Western Civilization, where he was a visiting scholar. Armed Stasi—sorry, FBI—agents accosted him in a parking lot and seized his phone without a warrant. He has been suspended from academic conferences and lost board seats. He and his wife have endured death threats, spikes in their driveway, and threatening graffiti in their neighborhood. He has been debanked by Bank of America and the USAA. He is being criminally prosecuted by scandal-ridden Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis. And last week, State Bar Court of California Judge Yvette Roland devoted 128 pages to explaining why he should lose his law license.
All this because John had the chutzpah to do what every law school student is taught to do in legal ethics class: defend and zealously advocate for one’s client, no matter how unpopular or even disreputable that client may be. In this case, John’s unpopular client was a high-profile one: former President Donald Trump.
There has been an astronomical amount of misinformation about John’s activities in the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol jamboree, as well as the legal advice that he offered his high-profile client during that time. The corporate media and the Democrat-lawfare complex typically speak of John’s legal advice as encouraging the ‘overturning of an election’ or ‘fomenting an insurrection,’ but such hyperbolic talk is irresponsible and wildly off-base.
John acquitted himself well in a compelling essay he penned for Claremont’s American Mind online journal on Jan. 18, 2021, titled “Setting the Record Straight on the POTUS ‘Ask.'” His 12th Amendment argument about the vice president’s more active role in certifying the states’ slates of electors and his accompanying argument regarding the constitutional dubiousness of the Electoral Count of 1887 might not be correct (although it could be), but it is well within the bounds of plausible, non-frivolous legal argumentation an attorney can (indeed, should) press upon an embattled client. That is doubly so here, because the U.S. Supreme Court has never authoritatively interpreted the relevant 12th Amendment provision. Countless legal arguments more frivolous than this are advanced every day in courtrooms across America.”
Remember, these are the people who claim to be “defending democracy,” read: ensure a Biden victory in 2024 and ensure their policies go into effect regardless of whether they’re passed by legislatures, even if it means destroying the institutions of our democracy to do it.
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