NEW: Bank Execs Blow The Whistle, Throw Obama Under The Bus

In the days following President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at ending the practice of debunking, major bank executives have shared additional details on how they were pressured by the Obama and Biden Administrations to deny services to individuals and businesses for political reasons.

Debanking refers to the practice of denying financial services to businesses or individuals, often without explanation. Federal regulations allow financial institutions to deny services to individuals involved in illegal activities such as money laundering or drug trafficking, though in recent years, a number of conservative groups and individuals have been denied services or subjected to increased surveillance.

Two senior banking executives spoke about the extent of pressure to debunk conservatives while speaking with Fox News on the condition of anonymity. “Those pressures were very, very real. When your regulator gives you a suggestion, it’s not a suggestion, it’s an order. The political stuff is very real, those pressures are real,” one senior banking executive told the outlet.

The executives pointed to ambiguity in federal laws that were exploited by regulators under the previous two Democrat presidencies in order to pursue political goals. According to one executive, banks were pressured to deny services to certain industries as part of Operation Choke Point and Operation Choke Point 2.0.

“When there’s ambiguity in the law, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and for a long time the beholder was the Obama and Biden administration,” the official said.

A report from the House Oversight Committee previously found that “Operation Choke Point,” a DOJ task force tasked with “choking out” companies opposed to the Obama Administration, worked with regulators in order flag certain industries, including firearms sales, as “high risk.”

Trump disbanded the task force in 2017, though a Financial Services Committee hearing last week heard accusations that former President Joe Biden had rebooted the initiative in order to target cryptocurrency firms, and other industries disfavored by the administration.

President Trump previously revealed that he was debanked by JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and others, resulting in more than $1 billion in deposits being refused. First Lady Melania Trump wrote in her memoir that she and her son, Barron, were debanked as well.

“I was shocked and dismayed to learn that my long‑time bank decided to terminate my account and deny my son the opportunity to open a new one.… This decision appeared to be rooted in political discrimination, raising serious concerns about civil rights violations,” Melania wrote.

The exact reason for the debunking has not been confirmed, though senior executives at each of the banks, the two largest financial institutions in the country, told the New York Post that it was ordered after the January 6 Capitol protests.

Specifically, the firms were warned that they could be found in violation of a rule that prohibits financial institutions from doing business with individuals and companies who present a “reputational risk.” Senior officials at the banks told The Post that Biden regulators with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the FDIC and the Federal Reserve often use the “nebulous nature of the edict” to expand upon debunking drug kingpins and criminals to target the administration’s political opponents going forward.

The firms were pressured to debank the then-former president, conservative leaders and anyone who participated in the January 6 Capitol protests.

“Think back to what it was like being Trump back in 2021; he was a hot potato after January 6 and the regulators made it clear to us that we shouldn’t do business with him,” one banking executive with direct knowledge of the situation told the New York Post. An executive at JPMorgan told the outlet that regulators “put the fear of God in you if you did business” with people like Trump.