Capital One asked a federal judge in Miami to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the Trump Organization over the closure of hundreds of bank accounts in 2021, arguing the decision resulted from a monthslong anti-money-laundering review rather than political retaliation. NPR

The motion to dismiss was filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida before Judge Roy Altman, who had dismissed an earlier version of the lawsuit in March on similar grounds. The case is captioned The Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust v. Capital One NA. NPR

The lawsuit concerns roughly 385 accounts tied to the Trump Organization, Eric Trump, and affiliated businesses including a winery, a bottled-water company, and a golf course developer. The accounts were shut down in mid-2021 after banking with Capital One for more than a decade. Capital One notified the Trump Organization in March 2021 that it would close more than 300 Trump-affiliated bank accounts. NPR

The Trumps' lawsuit alleged the Trump Organization was "de-banked" for political reasons, according to Reuters. Reuters

Capital One countered that narrative in its filing. The bank said the decision to close the Trump accounts was made as part of a process involving its anti-money-laundering professionals, described as having decades of relevant law enforcement experience. Bloomberg The review preceded the account closures and was not connected to the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, Capital One argued. NPR

Altman's March dismissal split the counts: some were dismissed without prejudice, allowing the plaintiffs to refile, while others were dismissed with prejudice. The Trump Organization subsequently filed an amended complaint, prompting Capital One's renewed motion to dismiss.

The case sits at the intersection of two developing legal threads. The first is the Trump Organization's broader assertion that financial institutions closed its accounts for political reasons rather than ordinary risk-management determinations. The second is the regulatory and compliance framework governing de-banking decisions, where banks operate under federal anti-money-laundering obligations that require them to monitor, review, and, when warranted, terminate customer relationships.

For practitioners, the motion to dismiss tests whether a bank's AML review process can be treated as a complete defense against a political-retaliation claim, or whether the plaintiff can survive dismissal by pointing to the timing and circumstances surrounding the closures. The fact that Altman already dismissed an earlier version of the complaint on similar grounds raises the procedural bar for the Trump Organization's amended claims, though the without-prejudice dismissals leave room for the plaintiffs to have refined their theory of the case.

The Middle District of Florida's public ECF docket lists the case and its associated opinions. The docket reflects the ongoing litigation between the Trump entities and Capital One over the 2021 account closures, which followed more than a decade of banking between the parties.

Capital One's filing emphasizes the institutional process behind the closures. The bank's anti-money-laundering professionals conducted the review that led to the decision, according to the filing, and the bank framed the closures as a compliance outcome rather than a discretionary or politically motivated action. Bloomberg

The roughly 385 affected accounts spanned multiple Trump-affiliated entities, including businesses operating in sectors such as wine production, bottled water, and golf course development. The breadth of the closures is central to the dispute: the Trump Organization contends the scale of the de-banking points to a coordinated political decision, while Capital One maintains it reflects the outcome of a standard AML risk assessment applied across a wide portfolio of accounts. NPR

The case remains pending before Altman. No ruling on the motion to dismiss has been issued.