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From Jeff Childers
America’s largest bank spent the last five years denying it did exactly what everyone knew it did. Yesterday, JPMorgan Chase finally ran out of consequence-free lying room. The Associated Press ran the story, headlined, “JPMorgan concedes it closed Trump’s accounts after Jan. 6 attack.”
JPMorgan Chase acknowledged for the first time that it shut down dozens of Trump accounts —personal and business— in February 2021, right after January 6th. The accounts included Trump hotels, housing developments, retail shops in IL, FL, and NY, plus Trump’s personal private banking account handling his inheritance from his father. The closing letter, which directed him to “find a more suitable institution,” signed off with “Thank you for your attention to this matter,” which has ironically become Trump’s favorite phrase.
President Trump did find a more suitable institution: state court in South Florida.
The one-line concession made news because, until yesterday, JPMorgan had stubbornly refused to admit it yanked the President’s accounts after January 6th. The bank, playing it coy, would only offer foggy hypotheticals about when it generally does and doesn’t close accounts, hiding behind the skirts of bank privacy laws. We can neither confirm nor deny…
But in a recent motion arguing for moving the case from Florida state court to a federal court in New York, the mega-bank was forced to strategically concede what Trump has claimed all along— that it did in fact close his accounts. “In February 2021, JPMorgan informed Plaintiffs that certain accounts maintained with JPMorgan’s CB and PB would be closed,” the bank’s new filing admitted.
It was legal chess, or at least checkers. Conceding that point sacrificed a pawn to potentially shift the locus of harm from Florida to New York, where the bank is headquartered. Under the law of venue —the choice of lawsuit location— most cases must be filed where an injury occurred. That’s why the bank’s previous refusal to even admit that any harm occurred left the bank vulnerable to accepting Trump’s version of events.
Trump sued JPMorgan Chase and its CEO, Jamie Dimon (personally), for $5 billion in damages based primarily on three claims: trade libel (think defamation), Florida’s Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act (skeevy or unethical conduct), and for breaching Trump’s accountholder agreements (bad faith contracting).
Five billion in damages would sting, even for JPMorgan. Red Florida juries aren’t likely to be sympathetic about J6 debanking, so you can easily understand why the bank made this early admission— it’s desperate to get the case as far away from Trump’s home court as possible. It’s deeply cynical, though. Fine, we did it, okay? But we did it in New York, so we can only be sued there.
Confessing sin is good for the soul.
I don’t know what the judge will do, especially in a hyper-political case like this. Nobody can sensibly predict anything. But if the case stays in South Florida, JPMorgan will have a pretty hot time. I can’t predict the judicial decision, but I can see the outlines of a generous settlement looming in the bank’s future. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
I could never understand how this could even happen. It’s such a primitive, evil, vile response, especially to Jan 6th where their reasons to debank have never even remotely been proven. It’s outrageous. This kind of shit should never happen in a free country based on the rule of law. It’s also telling that in a city in the United States, the people of New York have become so brainwashed, so dedicated to their own demise that getting a fair judgment there is impossible.