Capital One bank closed 300 of U.S. President Donald Trump’s accounts because of money laundering concerns.
Lawyers for Capital One said in a court filing in July 2026 that the bank closed accounts belonging to 12 plaintiffs for “anti-money laundering reasons” following reviews by the bank’s experts. The bank did not reveal the findings of the investigation, meaning it isn’t clear whether it had proof the plaintiffs actually laundered money through their accounts. Also, it’s unclear exactly how many accounts the bank closed; the plaintiffs said they had approximately 385.
In late July and early August 2026, a claim circulated online that Capital One bank closed 300 of U.S. President Donald Trump’s accounts because of money laundering concerns.
For example, one Threads user wrote (archived): “Watching Capital One close 300 Trump accounts for money laundering & not one MAGA acknowledging or caring.” The user included a photo of Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, a character on the medical drama “The Pitt,” pinching the bridge of his nose.
Similar claims also circulated on X (archived), Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Bluesky (archived) and Reddit (archived). Some claims said the alleged money laundering accusations were connected to property sales by Trump to Russian buyers. Snopes readers also contacted us about the claim.
The claim was true. Capital One said in a lawsuit filing in July 2026 that it closed a number of accounts that belonged to Trump and his businesses in 2021 for “anti-money laundering reasons” following “months of analysis and a careful review” by the bank’s anti-money laundering team (Page 1).
The bank didn’t reveal the findings of its investigation, meaning it’s unclear whether it had proof the plaintiffs actually laundered money through their accounts.
It’s also unclear exactly how many accounts Capital One closed following its investigation. The 12 plaintiffs, all in some way associated with the Trump name, said (Page 8) in a July 2026 filing that they had approximately 385 accounts with Capital One when the bank told them it would close their accounts.
There was no evidence in court filings that Capital One’s concerns about money laundering arose from Trump selling property to Russian buyers, as some variants of the claim said. A Reuters investigation reported that a number of Russian buyers did purchase Trump-branded property in 2017.
Snopes contacted lawyers for the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust and Capital One to confirm exactly how many accounts the bank closed and for further comment on the ongoing lawsuit. We await replies to our queries.
Claim came from Trump lawsuit about debanking
The Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust and 11 other plaintiffs initially sued Capital One for closing their accounts in a Florida district court in March 2025. The lawsuit claimed the plaintiffs had been unfairly debanked, meaning had their accounts closed, “because of President Trump’s political views” (Page 9). Debanking, the lawsuit said (Page 3), was “part of a growing trend by financial institutions in the United States of America to cut off a consumer’s access to banking services if their political views contradict with those of the financial institution.”
Trump put his business assets into The Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust during his first and second presidencies. His son Donald Trump Jr. manages the trust. The 11 other plaintiffs were businesses that carried or were otherwise connected to the Trump name.
After the lawsuit moved to a federal court in Florida, lawyers for Capital One moved to dismiss it, writing in May 2025 that claims that it tried to debank the plaintiffs when it closed their accounts were “false” (Page 1) and that the lawsuit failed to recognize the contract the account holders signed with Capital One when they opened their accounts (Page 2).
That contract, according to a copy filed by the plaintiffs’ lawyers, said Capital One could “close any account in our sole discretion at any time, for any or no reason and without notice to you,” meaning the account holder (Page 10).
In March 2026, almost a year after The Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust sued Capital One, Judge Roy K. Altman, whom Trump nominated in January 2019, dismissed the lawsuit but allowed the plaintiffs to amend their complaint and file again.
The second amended complaint that lawyers for The Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust filed on July 17, 2026, was heavily redacted, and its attached exhibits were largely sealed.
From its visible parts, it appeared that the plaintiffs still claimed Capital One had debanked them for political reasons, making reference to the U.S. Capitol riot in January 2021. The second amended complaint said (pages 7-8):
Capital One’s closure of Plaintiffs’ accounts was part of this broader, improper debanking pattern. As detailed below, the closure was not driven by genuine AML concerns, but by the political environment of January 2021, and Capital One’s desire to distance itself from President Trump in the wake of the events of January 6, 2021.
It was unclear from the visible parts of the second amended complaint what the AML abbreviation stood for, though Capital One later used it as an abbreviation for “anti-money laundering” when it moved to dismiss the complaint a second time.
In its second motion to dismiss the lawsuit, Capital One wrote (pages 1-2):
Capital One closed Plaintiffs’ accounts for anti-money laundering (“AML”) reasons. The closures were the result of months of analysis and a careful review by Capital One’s AML team in accordance with bank policies and regulatory guidance. Capital One never publicized the termination decision nor its confidential internal process giving rise to the closure, and it permitted Plaintiffs several months (and granted several extensions) to find new banking services, which they did.
The motion suggested that Capital One may have closed the accounts in question because it had either suspicion or proof that the account holders were using them for money laundering. However, the filing did not outright accuse the plaintiffs of money laundering or prove that they had used their accounts for that purpose.
The lawsuit was ongoing at the time of this writing. Capital One’s second motion to dismiss asked the judge to dismiss the case with prejudice, meaning the plaintiffs could not bring it again.
For further reading, Snopes has previously investigated a series of rumors about banks.
