MRC Free Speech America update summary: On Aug. 7, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order, "Guaranteeing Fair Banking For All Americans," which directs the Treasury to develop a strategy to combat politicized or unlawful debanking, “including consideration of legislative or regulatory options to eliminate such debanking." It further directs Federal banking regulators (the Small Business Administration) to do the following: "remove the use of reputation risk or equivalent concepts that could result in politicized or unlawful debanking;" to "identify and reinstate" or "identify" and provide notice to all previous clients denied access to "financial services" or "payment processing services," including as a result of "politicized or unlawful debanking action;" to "identify financial institutions" which have policies that "require, encourage or otherwise influence" politicization or unlawful banking and "take appropriate remedial action;" and to refer to the U.S. Attorney General "any financial institution" that is "unable to obtain compliance." On Oct. 7, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has issued a proposed rulemaking that would "codify the elimination of reputation risk from their supervisory programs" and "prohibit the agencies from requiring, instructing, or encouraging an institution to close customer accounts or take other actions on the basis of a person or entity’s political, social, cultural, or religious views or beliefs, constitutionally protected speech, or solely on the basis of politically disfavored but lawful business activities perceived to present reputation risk.”
The following article is a supplement to the MRC Report: The Biden Administration Waged War on Free Speech with 57 Censorship Initiatives.
Initiative #3: The Elimination of the Fair Access Rule
Type of Censorship: Policy or rulemaking
Agencies Involved:
- Department of the Treasury
- Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC)
Summary:
The Biden administration acted swiftly to destroy the “Fair Access Rule,” one of the key free speech protections instituted by his predecessor (and successor).
Meticulously following the requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), President Donald Trump’s Comptroller of the Currency, Brian Brooks, instituted the ‘Fair Access Rule.’ This barred the largest Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)-insured banks from discriminating on the basis of political viewpoint.
Within eight days of Biden’s inauguration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) blocked the rule’s enforcement and then began revoking the regulation entirely. As Biden’s OCC sabotaged the rule, large banks accelerated their blacklisting of former government officials, political activists and even entire industries with views contrary to Biden’s.
Key Individuals:
- Kenneth Blanco, FinCEN Director
- Michael Mosier, Acting FinCEN Director
