A top bank watchdog said he was making sure big banks have finally ditched those “oops, we just destroyed your business because we don’t like your political beliefs” – er, debanking rather, policies. You remember those, right? We sure do. It happened around the same time Google, Paypal and Amazon all banned us due to our (correct) take on the origins of Covid-19 and because they didn’t like our (correct) take on the BLM movement.
For those that missed it, a slew of banks under the Biden administration outright cancelled people’s accounts and didn’t allow them access to a bank account based on the industry they worked in, or many times their political views (surprise, none of them were Democrats).
Jonathan Gould, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or OCC, told a conference that supervisors are double-checking banks really did stop blacklisting sectors like firearms from banks, according to Reuters.
This oversight follows a June executive order from President Donald Trump directing banks to avoid denying services based on industry type or political considerations. Reuters writes that supervisors are now ensuring that the largest banks are in compliance with the updated approach.
As The Epoch Times wrote back in August, President Donald Trump’s executive order banning politicized debanking is intended to reverse what some analysts say is a trend of banks and payment services refusing service to people and companies for political, religious, or ideological reasons.
Advocates against political debanking cite cases of Christians and conservatives who they say have been victims of this process. This includes allegations by Christian organizations including Tennessee-based nonprofit Indigenous Advance Ministries, as well as Sam Brownback, the chairman of the National Committee for Religious Freedom (NCRF), and the president himself.
Speaking to bank executives at the World Economic Forum in January, Trump said, “I hope you start opening your bank to conservatives, because many conservatives complain that the banks are not allowing them to do business within the bank, and that included a place called Bank of America.”
Debanking is one of the most nefarious secrets of the financial system: It is never in public forums, only specialists write about it, yet it is a threat to everyone in the most intensely effective way. The practice denies people access to the basics of life and there is no appeal, no process, no methods of challenge, and no remediation.
In her biography, Melania Trump revealed that she and her son Barron were victims of debanking. This happened in 2021, after her husband had left the office of the presidency. There were concerted efforts at the time to wipe out the memory of his time in office. Here’s more from Eric Trump on what his family endured.
Lets hope the era is over, permanently, no matter who is in the White House.
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