President Donald Trump is taking on financial institutions that, during the Biden administration, were all too happy to debank and financially censor Americans.
As promised, Trump will soon sign an executive order kicking off investigations into banks that refused to service customers with certain political views, while claiming they posed a so-called reputational risk. It’s the latest move by Trump to dismantle the 57 censorship initiatives of the Biden administration as detailed by the Media Research Center.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the order, “[D]irects bank regulators to investigate whether any financial institutions might have violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, antitrust laws or consumer financial-protection laws.” The newspaper notes that “Violators could be subject to monetary penalties, consent decrees or other disciplinary measures, according to the draft.”
Immediately after Joe Biden took office, his administration blocked enforcement of, then tried to get rid of the “Fair Access Rule,” which protected disfavored individuals from being debanked for their political beliefs, as noted in MRC Free Speech America’s report on Biden’s censorship initiatives (Censorship Initiative #3). It also protected companies from being debanked for selling products like guns, oil or coal.
Many of the financial institutions that debanked customers are far from blameless. Some only needed permission rather than pressure. For example, Banks such as Wells Fargo, Bank of America and USAA quickly took the opportunity to target both individuals and industries.
Additionally, Biden’s solicitor general staunchly defended the state of New York when it issued brazen threats to pressure financial institutions into debanking the NRA (Censorship Initiative #40). And as part of the Biden administration’s relentless persecution of cryptocurrencies, the former president’s SEC tried to get the firm Andreessen Horowitz and its employees debanked by implying to the relevant financial institutions that these customers would be prosecuted (Censorship Initiative #43). Cofounder Marc Andreessen claimed that the Biden Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had successfully pushed for the father of Andreessen’s business partner to be debanked.
Read More: The Biden Administration Waged War on Free Speech with 57 Censorship Initiatives
Now, Trump is striking back. His upcoming executive order is Trump’s latest victory in his ongoing fight against financial censorship and debanking. On his fourth day in office, Trump signed an order, “[P]rotecting and promoting fair and open access to banking services for all law-abiding individual citizens and private-sector entities alike.”
Beth A. Williams, currently the only member of Trump’s U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), also promised to investigate the government’s role in pushing debanking on financial institutions. This commitment followed MRC Free Speech America VP Dan Schneider’s testimony to PCLOB about the legion of Biden administration agencies engaged in unlawful censorship. In fact, the Biden administration was responsible for 57 censorship initiatives involving no fewer than 90 federal agencies.
The Trump administration’s efforts seem to be working. In June 2025, Citigroup Inc. cited “recent executive orders” in an announcement noting that the company had rescinded a 2018 policy of discriminating against gun manufacturers unless they put additional restrictions on their products and customers.
The president publicly criticized Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan at the World Economic Forum. At the same event, Trump also called out JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon. Bank of America responded to these comments by promising never to debank customers for political purposes. They also made this promise in response to a request for comment from MRC Free Speech America, while renouncing outside interest group pressure to debank customers.
Editor’s Note: This piece has been updated to provide further background on the U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board's involvement.
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