Americans deserve to know how far Bank of America’s de-banking went
Bank of America needs to come clean: Did it “de-bank” the makers of a film about Ronald Reagan?
That’s the claim made by RawHide Pictures, the production company behind the biopic about the great Californian conservative.
RawHide showed The California Post a 2021 letter from the bank in which it told the company that it would be closing its accounts.
The company’s accounts were later restored, after an appeal — but not before it had to scramble to find another bank.
RawHide Pictures claimed that Bank of America “debanked” its accounts while it was filming the Reagan biopic. Courtesy Everett Collection
Bank of America never provided the company any explanation, and it still refuses to say why it cut its ties with the “Reagan” filmmakers.
But the decision came around the same time that Bank of America allegedly cut ties with other conservatives — including, most infamously, President Donald Trump himself.
Trump said a year ago that Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase both rejected his deposits after he left the presidency.
The “de-banking” was part of a broader effort by big banks and big social media companies to isolate Trump and to exclude him from public life.
Bank of America never provided the company any explanation, and it still refuses to say why it cut its ties with the “Reagan” filmmakers. AP
The effort accelerated after the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021, when the media deemed Trump a danger to society, and his social media accounts were suspended.
But in truth, the effort had begun long before — even before the 2020 election, when the media started cutting away from Trump’s speeches to avoid airing his claims of fraud.
In fact, Trump was first censored by Twitter (in its pre-Elon Musk days) in July 2020, when he posted a link to a video press conference of doctors who had questioned the scientific consensus about coronavirus.
The de-banking effort had also been in the works for years. In 2018, Bank of America announced that it would stop providing financial services to certain gun manufacturers.
The bank later reversed course. But the precedent was set: If you belonged to a group that the political left did not like, you could lose access to the American financial system.
Less than a decade before, the government had targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny by the IRS when they tried to apply for nonprofit status.
But under pressure from the left, that effort soon spread to the private sector as well.
Trump’s Department of Justice has subpoenaed JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America. We look forward to learning what it uncovers.
The American people must know how far de-banking went.
DOCUMENTED REFERENCES
Exploring Documented Records
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Browse the structured archive of documented order records
For readers looking to review primary-source style data rather than interpretations, exploring compiled records can provide additional context to the broader discussion.
