Donald Trump’s campaign of revenge continues. The latest opponent is called Jamie Dimon and is considered the most important banker in the United States. Dimon, who has led the US financial company JPMorgan Chase for almost 20 years, became the target of a lawsuit by the president this week. According to the indictment, Trump accuses the banking group and Dimon of illegally closing several of his accounts for political reasons.
The account terminations occurred shortly after the events of January 6, 2021. On that day, thousands of Trump supporters violently stormed the US Capitol to prevent the confirmation of Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory.
“He canceled my bank account. We’ll see if that has any consequences, but I think it should. What Jamie Dimon did – he’s not allowed to do that,” Trump said during the flight home from Switzerland. where he had visited the World Economic Forum in Davos over the past two days.
The US President and the other plaintiffs in the case, all companies with ties to Trump, are demanding at least $5 billion in damages.
JPMorgan denies the allegations
“Plaintiffs are confident that JPMorgan’s decision to terminate the accounts was based on political and social motives,” the indictment says. The bank was also said to have embraced a “wokeness” culture that led it to distance itself from President Trump and his conservative political views.
JPMorgan Chase denies that Trump’s policies are related to the account terminations. The company explained that the terminations were due to legal requirements.
“JPMorgan does not close accounts for political or religious reasons. However, we close accounts when they pose a legal risk to the company,” company spokeswoman Patricia Wexler told CNBC.
The company regrets that Trump has taken legal action, but is firmly convinced that the lawsuit is without merit.
The indictment lacks evidence that would explain how Trump and his legal counsel came to the idea that the account closures were political. It just says that the bank never provided an official explanation for its actions.
Dimon will not be the head of the central bank
In addition to the illegal account closure, according to the accusation, JPMorgan is said to have placed the names of the president, some of his family members and the Trump organizations on a blacklist, i.e. a blacklist within the banking industry, on Dimon’s personal instructions. However, the system failed to provide further details on a list.
The charges, formally filed on Wednesday, came just days after Trump made it clear in a post on his platform Truth Social that he had never offered Dimon the job as Federal Reserve chairman. He was reacting to one Wall Street Journalreport that claimed the opposite.
Dimon, 69, also in Davos at the World Economic Forum, denied that politics influenced the decision to close Trump’s accounts.
Dimon is not an enemy of Trump
Even though Trump and Dimon have had a mostly friendly relationship, there have been differences of opinion on political and economic issues. In 2022, Dimon said that Trump’s continued denial of his defeat in the 2020 presidential election amounted to “treason.”
In Davos, Dimon came out as an avowed supporter of globalization. “I want a stronger NATO, a strong Europe. Some of the measures Trump has taken contribute to that. Others don’t. I’m not a supporter of tariffs,” Dimon said.
As CEO of the largest U.S. bank – JPMorgan Chase, which manages more than $4 trillion in assets – Dimon received total compensation of $43 million last year. According to Forbes, his personal fortune is said to be around $2.8 billion.