JPMorgan Chase denied claims that it “debanked” former Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback over his conservative and religious views, according to a report Thursday.
The bank said it did not receive information it had requested from Brownback before it closed the account, according to an October 2022 letter viewed by Reuters.
Brownback, a Republican who chairs the National Committee for Religious Freedom, has accused JPMorgan of shuttering the account in 2022 on religious grounds.
He alleged the nation’s largest bank refuses business to conservatives and religious groups.
“We don’t discontinue client relationships because of a religious or political affiliation, and we didn’t with your account,” Larry Thode, a managing director at JPMorgan, wrote in a previously unreported letter from October 2022.
“The information your organization gave to us at account opening triggered our request for additional information. That had nothing to do with any religious affiliation.”
He added that the bank did not obtain the necessary information before the account was closed because its employees were unable to connect with Brownback’s staff.
“The most suspicious thing about our case is that even after their October 2022 letter Chase continued to change their rationale for closing our account,” Brownback told The Post in a statement.
A spokesperson for Brownback said the bank still has not addressed why the account was closed just three weeks after opening, and that the group was not given 60 days to respond to the bank’s inquiries.
“The regulatory and supervisory environment governing banking – including our AML [anti-money laundering] regime – is in immediate need of reform, and we look forward to supporting this Administration to do that,” a JPMorgan spokesperson told The Post.
The spokesperson added that Brownback’s claims that the bank has not addressed the reason behind the account closure are “patently false. The Senator is fully aware of why his accounts were closed.”
Thode did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Meanwhile, President Trump signed an executive order Thursday that will slap banks that discriminate against conservatives with fines and other penalties.
It will also retroactively target financial institutions that have closed accounts on political or religious grounds in the past.
“President Trump is addressing unfair banking practices and protecting the American people from being denied access to financial services due to their political party or religious beliefs,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields told The Post.
Earlier this week, Trump claimed that JPMorgan, Bank of America and other banks “discriminated against me very badly” when they refused to accept more than $1 billion of his deposits.
For months, the president has railed against debanking practices.
He blasted Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan earlier this year, who he said “was kissing my ass when I was president” but wouldn’t accept the deposits after his first term ended.
Brownback alleged JPMorgan abruptly shuttered the religious committee’s account in 2022.
“When I tried to deposit a donation at a local Chase branch, I was informed the bank had closed our account — without giving me any reason why,” Brownback wrote in an op-ed for The Post earlier this year.
“Over the course of the next year, a stream of Chase employees offered up no fewer than four conflicting explanations for why it had canceled our account,” he added.
Banks are required to carry out due diligence under anti-money laundering programs, including specific guidelines for charities and non-profit organizations, like the National Committee for Religious Freedom.
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