Lenders Cut Trump, Other Lawmakers off, Citing U.S. Capitol Riot | Eastern North Carolina Now

Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire. The author of this post is Tim Pearce.

    Two banks that previously did business with President Donald Trump are cutting him off following the Jan. 6 riot in the U.S. Capitol.

    Deutsche Bank AG, a German lender, and Signature Bank, a New York-based institution, have both announced that they will no longer do business with Trump because of his actions on Jan. 6. Signature Bank went farther saying that it would not do business with any lawmaker that voted against certifying the 2020 election results, according to Bloomberg.

    Trump currently has roughly $300 million in outstanding loans due to Deutsche Bank. Those loans come due in 2023 and 2024. The German bank has come under scrutiny during Trump's term as Democrats and prosecutors have pushed to obtain Trump's financial history.

    Trump's longtime banker at Deutsche, Rosemary Vrablic, announced her resignation from the bank last month. Her announcement came after the bank opened an internal investigation of a 2013 real estate deal between the banker and a company part-owned by Jared Kushner. It is not clear what connection, if any, exists between the internal investigation and Vrablic's decision to resign.

    Signature Bank came out with a statement on Tuesday condemning the riot at the U.S. Capitol, as well as the president for "encouraging the rioters and refraining from calling in the National Guard to protect the Congress in its performance of duty." The bank is closing two accounts that belong to the president and hold about $5.3 million. The bank also called on Trump to resign from office. The bank's statement, published on its website, says:

• We have never before commented on any political matter and hope to never do so again. However, as Americans we are deeply, deeply saddened by the rioting and insurrection which took place in the most sacred of American institutions, our United States Capitol.
• To witness a rioter sitting in the presiding chair of the U.S. Senate and our elected representatives being told to seek cover under their seats is appalling and an insult to the Republic. We witnessed the President of the United States encouraging the rioters and refraining from calling in the National Guard to protect the Congress in its performance of duty.
• At this point in time, to ensure the peaceful transition of power, we believe the appropriate action would be the resignation of the President of the United States, which is in the best interests of our nation and the American people.

    The banks have joined many other companies that are distancing themselves from Trump following the Jan. 6 riot. Trump has been temporarily barred from posting to Facebook and Instagram, and permanently banned from Twitter and other social media platforms.

    The actions taken by private companies against the president have raised questions about tech giants' influence over speech. The American Civil Liberties Union released a statement on Friday slamming the tech companies for censoring the president.

    "For months, President Trump has been using social media platforms to seed doubt about the results of the election and to undermine the will of voters. We understand the desire to permanently suspend him now, but it should concern everyone when companies like Facebook and Twitter wield the unchecked power to remove people from platforms that have become indispensable for the speech of billions — especially when political realities make those decisions easier. President Trump can turn to his press team or Fox News to communicate with the public, but others — like the many Black, Brown, and LGBTQ activists who have been censored by social media companies — will not have that luxury. It is our hope that these companies will apply their rules transparently to everyone," the ACLU wrote.