Federal prosecutors have hit JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and other Wall Street giants with sweeping subpoenas in a criminal probe of whether they “debanked” customers over their politics, two sources familiar with the matter told The Post.
The demands from US Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s Washington, DC, office order the banks to cough up lists of customers they cut off and explain why their accounts were closed.
The probe, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, marks an escalation of President Trump’s criticism of the banking sector for allegedly blocking out conservatives including the First Family. …
Still, the feds believe they have a paper trail.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, an independent bureau inside the Treasury Department, said in December it found early evidence the country’s nine biggest banks had debanked customers in industries including oil and gas, coal, firearms and adult entertainment.
Officials cited the banks’ own glossy reports touting climate and racial-equity pledges.
Until now, the crackdown had been the OCC’s turf under an executive order Trump signed in August targeting “politicized or unlawful debanking.”
The order told regulators to refer cases to the attorney general, though none ever did. Pirro’s office launched its probe on its own, according to media reports, though her office and OCC are now coordinating.
— James Franey in Justice Department opens sweeping ‘debanking’ probe into JPMorgan, Bank of America and more
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