The second year of President Trump’s second term just got tougher for the nation’s largest bank and its former CEO, Jamie Dimon.
On Thursday, Trump’s legal team filed a $5 billion lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Dimon, accusing the country’s largest bank of unseating him or terminating banking services for political reasons.
The lawsuit, filed in a Florida court in Miami, accuses the bank of violating its “implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing,” citing the bank’s code of conduct and “Dimon’s lofty assertions” and citing the CEO’s 2021 letter to shareholders.
“Despite claiming to uphold these principles, JPMC unilaterally violated them, and without notice or remedy, by terminating several of Plaintiffs’ bank accounts,” Trump’s lawyer wrote in the lawsuit.
The move comes after Trump wrote in a social media post last weekend that he planned to sue the bank for “inappropriately debanking him.”
A lawyer representing Trump in the lawsuit stated in the filing that in February 2021, JPMorgan allegedly “without notice or provocation” notified Trump, the Trump Organization and his family that several accounts they controlled would be closed within two months.
The lawyer further alleged that JPMorgan’s “baseless and ‘woke’ beliefs” drove the bank’s decision to “distance itself from President Trump and his conservative political views.”
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, leaves the US Capitol after a meeting with Republican members of the Senate Banking Committee on the issue of debanking on February 13, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images) ·Tom Williams via Getty Images
The lawsuit further alleges that JPMorgan’s actions “in violation of its code of conduct and Dimon’s lofty claims, (are) a key indicator of a systemic and subversive industry practice that aims to force the public to change and realign its political views.”
A JPMorgan spokesperson said it plans to challenge the lawsuit in court, according to emailed statements.
“While we regret that President Trump sued us, we believe the lawsuit is without merit. We respect the president’s right to sue us and our right to defend ourselves – that’s what the courts are for,” a JPMorgan spokesperson said in emailed comments.
The bank said it “does not close accounts for political or religious reasons,” adding that it “closes accounts because they create a legal or regulatory risk for the company.”
For years, conservatives and certain industries, including crypto companies, have said that American banks have denied accounts to certain customers for political reasons. In August, Trump signed an executive order asking federal banking regulators to investigate whether decisions by agencies or financial institutions to deny access to certain customers were examples of “politicized or illegal debanking.”
Another criticism that Republican and Democratic lawmakers have made is that banks may use debanking too aggressively as a reputational risk management tool when fulfilling their broad mandate under the Bank Secrecy Act to prevent fraud, money laundering, terrorism and other crimes. And that, critics have said, has led to customers being evicted or incorrectly refused service.
Regulators “put a lot of pressure on us” and “tell us what is high risk,” Dimon said during a Chase podcast last year.
In a November regulatory filing, JPMorgan disclosed that it faced reviews, investigations and legal proceedings related to the Trump administration’s executive order on debanking.
Thursday’s lawsuit adds to what has become an increasingly complicated 2026 for JPMorgan and its relationship with the Trump administration. The president recently called for a one-year cap on credit card interest rates at 10% in a social media post, which Dimon said Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos “would be an economic disaster.” Hours later he attended a cocktail party hosted by the president, according to a person familiar with the events.
Read more: What Trump’s 10% cap on interest rates would mean for credit cardholders
The government’s proposal to limit credit cards comes amid a broader effort to focus on affordability. Dimon met with Trump twice over the summer and again in the fall as part of a White House dinner, where the president sought input on his administration’s latest push on affordability, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Dimon’s rollercoaster relationship with President Trump goes back many years. In 2023, for example, Trump described Dimon as a “very overrated globalist,” although their relationship had shown signs of improvement in recent years.
At Davos in 2024, Dimon said Trump was “more or less right” on some issues. Last year, the executive downplayed some of the inflation concerns that economists and business leaders raised about newly elected President Trump’s agenda. This week, however, Dimon, in an apparent response to Trump’s earlier criticism, declared in Davos: “I’m a globalist.”
David Hollerith covers the financial sector, ranging from the country’s largest banks to regional lenders, private equity firms and the cryptocurrency space.
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