People pardoned by Trump want banks to forgive their past, too

WASHINGTON — It’s one thing to be cleared by the president. It’s another to be cleared by the bank.

Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy was pardoned at the end of President Donald Trump’s first term after a conviction for violating a U.S. lobbying law. Yet when he applied for an American Express Co. credit card this year, the lender denied him, citing his criminal history.

Mahmoud Reza Banki, the former chief financial officer of social media company X, says he ran into a similar problem. He claims JPMorgan Chase & Co. sought to close his accounts, citing a 15-year-old conviction for making false statements. He, too, had been pardoned at the end of Trump’s first term.

Both men are suing the financial institutions, claiming they were “debanked” even after their White House reprieves.

The separate cases, brought by lawyers who have represented an advocacy group co-founded by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, are testing the bounds of forgiveness and if clemency is truly meant to wipe the slate clean. At stake is whether a pardon, meant to erase the legal stain of a conviction, can override the risk assessments of private lenders that are required to guard against money laundering, fraud and other financial crimes.

It’s a critical question as clemency becomes all the more common. President Joe Biden granted more than 4,000 commutations and pardons in his four-year term, a record. Trump has followed with more than 1,600 of his own in nine months since taking office, including for participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol. Just last week, he commuted the sentence of Republican lawmaker George Santos, who was serving time after being convicted of stealing campaign funds.

While pardons can spring someone from prison — or keep them out of it to begin with — they don’t necessarily end all repercussions from the case. Evidence of wrongdoing remains in the public record, and financial institutions routinely consider such information to evaluate their potential liabilities.

“A pardon is not a finding of innocence. It doesn’t in any way mean your conviction was not validly imposed or that you were not guilty of the crime,” said Liz Oyer, who was the Justice Department’s top pardon attorney for three years before being fired in March after refusing to recommend that actor and Trump ally Mel Gibson have his gun rights restored.

Oyer, who was a public defender before joining the government, said losing bank access is very common for people who have been accused of wrongdoing, whether convicted or not. “I certainly had clients who were dropped by their banks just because of an investigation initiated by the government,” she said.

But the idea that conservatives are being debanked for their political beliefs has become an obsession among some members of Trump’s MAGA movement, including the president himself. The Trump Organization sued Capital One Financial Corp. in March, accusing it of threatening the real estate business by abruptly canceling hundreds of accounts after his first term ended in 2021. (Capital One has denied wrongdoing and moved for the case to be dismissed.) Since taking office for his second term, Trump has threatened firms with investigations and penalties over debanking.

In August, the president issued an executive order mandating federal agencies involved in bank supervision stop considering reputation risk, which critics said financial companies used as a general catch-all for closing accounts. The order also requires regulators to make efforts to identify and reinstate former clients who were denied service “through a politicized or unlawful debanking action.”

Some banks, meanwhile, have been making changes on their own. JPMorgan updated its policies beginning last year to prohibit discriminating against customers for “religious views” and “political opinions, speech or affiliations.”

Jay Surgent, a criminal defense lawyer who helped secure a pardon from Trump for reality television couple Todd and Julie Chrisley, said banks may have the upper hand legally, but are under pressure “in this political atmosphere.”

Limiting banks’ ability to consider customers’ past criminal behavior risks exposing them to money laundering, fraud and sanctions violations, according to Richard Crone, a financial payments consultant in San Francisco. Crone said financial institutions have the right to carefully consider whether to work with known fraudsters, even if they’ve been pardoned. He questioned what would happen if someone like the late Ponzi scheme operator Bernie Madoff was given clemency.

Even with a pardon, Crone said, “risk-based assessments could still block someone like Madoff from being banked or extended credit.”

Those who lose banking over criminal allegations will usually seek workarounds, such as using accounts owned by family, friends, or perhaps an accountant or a lawyer, said Russell Duncan, a partner at Clark Hill in Washington. “They’ll go to smaller institutions that are perhaps under less regulatory scrutiny or have more flexible standards,” said Duncan, a former federal prosecutor.

JPMorgan cited reputational risk when moving to close two accounts owned by Banki in September 2024, according to documents filed by the bank in federal court in Jacksonville, Florida. That decision stemmed from Banki’s 2010 conviction for violating US sanctions on Iran as well as operating an unlicensed money transfer business and making false statements to investigators. He spent 22 months in prison before most of his conviction was overturned on appeal.

Banki filed cases last year against JPMorgan and Bank of America, alleging they denied him credit based on his dual US-Iranian citizenship. He also accused JPMorgan of seeking to close his First Republic Bank accounts, which JPMorgan acquired when that firm collapsed in 2023. He filed a third lawsuit against several entities, including Fidelity Brokerage Services, alleging they refused to let him open a college tuition savings account without saying why.

In a filing last year, a Chase executive told the court that it closed the accounts “as a result of the negative media and possible reputational risk to the bank from Mr. Banki.”

After Banki sought a temporary restraining order, JPMorgan this year reversed its decision and agreed to keep his former First Republic accounts open. Fidelity settled the matter with him this year. Bank of America and Banki reached an impasse in their settlement talks, according to a recent court filing, and are now proposing a trial date in August 2026.

Patricia Wexler, a spokeswoman for JPMorgan, said the bank decided to leave the former First Republic accounts open “given the successful appeal and the time that had passed without additional criminal charges.”

A Bank of America spokesman declined to comment. In a court filing, the lender said it didn’t discriminate against the plaintiff based on his national origin, but denied him credit “in light of his criminal background and associated banking history.”

Banki and his lawyers didn’t respond to messages seeking comment. Fidelity declined to comment.

Broidy, 68, is the chairman and chief executive officer of Broidy Capital Holdings, an investment firm in Boca Raton, Florida. He’s also been a key figure in the Republican National Committee, serving as finance chairman for three years beginning in 2005, then as deputy finance chairman for two years during the first Trump administration. He stepped down from that role in 2018 after he agreed to pay $1.6 million to a former Playboy model who became pregnant during an affair.

In October 2020, Broidy pleaded guilty to illegally lobbying Trump’s administration to help fugitive Malaysian businessman Jho Low block an investigation into the 1MDB investment fund and aid Low’s push on behalf of China for the US to extradite Guo Wengui, a wealthy exile who criticized China’s government. Low, whose scheme is alleged to have siphoned $4.5 billion from Malaysia’s state wealth fund, initially paid $8 million to Broidy and promised $75 million more if he succeeded in persuading the Justice Department to walk away from its civil forfeiture case, according to a transcript of Broidy’s plea hearing.

As part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors, Broidy agreed to forfeit $6.6 million. He faced as much as five years in prison. Before he was sentenced, Trump pardoned him along with more than 70 others on the final day of his first term.

Broidy Capital has a corporate account with American Express in the name of its operations manager. In February, Broidy sought to secure an additional card on that account in his name, but was denied. The lender said it was due to his history with American Express. Broidy in his lawsuit claims he never had a negative issue with American Express and had an excellent payment history. He alleges the firm violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act by not giving him a specific explanation.

An American Express spokeswoman said the company doesn’t comment on individual clients or specific account decisions, which are guided by “data-driven, risk based and financial factors.” “We do not make credit decisions based on personal views or political affiliations,” she added.

In late August, American Express in a legal filing said Broidy was aware that it previously canceled three of his accounts because they were “not being used for their intended purpose.” The lender didn’t explain further other than saying the cancellations followed Broidy’s October 2020 guilty plea.

Broidy and his lawyers didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.

For now, American Express argues in court documents that any challenge to its decision not to issue a card must be handled in arbitration, not a court, per its customer agreement. A judge has scheduled a hearing for Oct. 23.

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With assistance from Paige Smith and Kara Wetzel.

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