Trump Organization sues Capital One bank over account closures after Jan. 6 Capitol riot

The Trump Organization sued Capital One in Florida on Friday for allegedly “unjustifiably” closing more than 300 of the company’s bank accounts on the heels of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol by a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters.

The lawsuit said that the Trump Organization and related entities “have reason to believe that Capital One’s unilateral decision came about as a result of political and social motivations and Capital One’s unsubstantiated, ‘woke’ beliefs that it needed to distance itself from President Trump and his conservative political views.”

“In essence, Capital One ‘de-banked’ Plaintiffs’ Accounts because Capital One believed that the political tide at the moment favored doing so,” the Trump Organization claims in the civil case filed in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court in Miami-Dade County.

The suit seeks a declaratory judgment that the bank improperly terminated the Trump companies’ accounts in June 2021, as well as punitive and other monetary damages for what the suit alleged was “the devastating impact” of the terminations on the companies’ ability to transact and access their funds.

The closures came more than four months after the riot at the U.S. Capitol, which began after Trump for weeks falsely claimed that he had won the 2020 presidential election over former President Joe Biden.

The suit’s named plaintiffs are the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, DJT Holdings, DJT Holdings Managing Member, DTTM Operations, and Eric Trump, the president’s son, who with his brother, Donald Trump Jr., runs the Trump Organization.

The complaint says the plaintiffs and affiliated entities held hundreds of accounts at Capital One for decades before they were closed. Eric Trump said the amount of damages suffered by the companies is “millions of dollars.”

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Alejandro Brito, a lawyer who is representing the Trump Organization in the suit, told CNBC the company “is contemplating other suits against financial organizations that engaged in similar conduct.”

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Brito said Capital One’s actions “was an attack on free speech.”

A spokesperson for the bank wrote in an email to CNBC, “Capital One has not and does not close customer accounts for political reasons.”

Eric Trump said in a statement, “The decision by Capital One to ‘debank’ our company, after well over a decade, was a clear attack on free speech and free enterprise that flies in the face of the bedrock principles and freedoms that define our country.”

“Moreover, the arbitrary closure of these accounts, without justifiable cause, reflects a broader effort to silence and undermine the success of the Trump Organization and those who dare to express their political views,” said Eric Trump.