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September 9, 2025
J.P. Morgan Wealth Management Slow-Walking President’s Banking Nondiscrimination Rules
At least one banking giant is dragging its feet when it comes to complying with efforts by President Donald Trump, the federal government and Congress to end the unlawful banking discrimination against firearm-related business.
J.P. Morgan Wealth Management recently denied essential banking services to Brandon Maddox, Founder and CEO of Silencer Central, a firearm suppressor company, according to an email exchange provided to NSSF. A senior associate and wealth planning specialist with J.P. Morgan Wealth Management denied services when Maddox inquired if the banking giant works with companies in the firearm industry.
As a matter of transparency, Maddox serves on NSSF’s Board of Governors.
The J.P. Morgan Wealth Management associate’s response was simple, if not disappointing. After all, Maddox’s business is based in South Dakota and his senators are Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who is a member of the Senate Banking Committee.
“We apologize, but unfortunately, we are prohibited from working with entities and associated individuals that are in the category of arms, ammunition and explosives. Sorry for any confusion,” the senior associate wrote.
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
That’s alarming because President Trump’s Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans Executive Order, signed in August, gave banks 180 days to cease “unacceptable practices to restrict law-abiding individuals’ and businesses’ access to financial services on the basis of political or religious beliefs or lawful business activities.” NSSF applauded President Trump’s Executive Order ending “woke” banking discrimination. It is implausible that a corporate bank the size of JPMorganChase would respond to Maddox with a categorical denial because it was simply unaware of the order. That’s what compliance departments do; they ensure their companies are in compliance with applicable laws and regulations that govern the conduct of their industry.
President Trump’s order highlighted attempts by the previous administration to illegally surveil Americans lawfully exercising their Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms through the willing cooperation of corporate banks. The president also noted the illegal “Operation Choke Point,” executed by the Obama administration, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice (DOJ), along with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), to deny essential banking services to firearm-related businesses based on an ill-defined and amorphous “reputational risk” criteria.
President Trump ripped back that thin veneer of discrimination when he signed his Executive Order, telling federal banking regulators to remove reputational risk from their lexicon, policies and guidance documents. Banks and financial institutions are to return to making decisions about who to bank and provide financial services to based on individualized, objective and risk-based analysis.
In other words, no more boxing out businesses for banking services simply because “woke” corporate bankers and banking regulators find those businesses and the products they make politically distasteful. Political ideology has no place in making banking decisions – it never did.
President Trump, quite literally, called out JPMorganChase CEO Jamie Dimon for illegal banking discrimination within days of being sworn into office for his second term.
While speaking at the World Economic Forum 2025 in Davos, Switzerland, the president didn’t mince words.
“You and Jamie [JPMorganChase CEO Jamie Dimon] and everybody else, I hope you start opening your banks to conservatives,” President Trump said directly to Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan. “What you’re doing is wrong.” Dimon in 2021 testified at a Congressional hearing and stated under oath that JPMorganChase would not lend to manufacturers of Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs). “We do not finance the manufacture of military style weapons for civilian use,” Dimon said at the time.
It’s not just President Trump’s Executive Order that JPMorganChase is slow-walking. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) just announced new actions to eliminate politicized or unlawful debanking in the federal baking systems. It’s part of the way the federal government is implementing President Trump’s Executive Order.
Regulators Ride
The OCC requested information from nine of the largest regulated institutions regarding their debanking activities. It also updated a customer complaint website and is reviewing complaint data and data from other government and third-party sources to refine OCC examination efforts.
“The OCC is taking steps to end the weaponization of the financial system,” said Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan V. Gould in a news release. “We are working to root out bank activities that unlawfully debank or discriminate against customers on the basis of political or religious beliefs, or lawful business activities. If and when the OCC identifies such activity, it will take action to end it.”
Earlier this year, the OCC removed references to reputation risk from its handbooks and guidance documents and it will soon propose a rule removing these same references from its regulations.
Congress, too, has been bullish about rooting out banking discrimination.
“Debanking federally legal businesses and law-abiding citizens is un-American, and President Trump’s Executive Order (E.O.) is a critical step towards protecting Americans’ access to financial services,” said U.S. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said in a press release. “I’ll continue to work with President Trump to end the debanking of law-abiding Americans and federally legal businesses on the basis of their political or religious affiliations.”
Chairman Scott sponsored the NSSF-supported Financial Integrity and Regulation Management (FIRM) Act, S. 875, which has already passed favorably from the Senate Banking Committee. That bill has a companion in the U.S. House of Representatives, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.), introduced under the same title as H.R. 2702, which has also passed favorably from the House Financial Services Committee.
NSSF continues to support Congressional efforts to codify protections against banking discrimination by the Fair Access to Banking Act, introduced in the House by Rep. Barr (R-Ky.) as H.R. 987 and in the Senate by Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) as S. 401, as well as the Firearm Industry Nondiscrimination (FIND) Act, introduced in the House by Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.) as H.R. 45 and the Senate by Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) as S. 137.
Further, NSSF was successful in passing the FIND Act in 11 states, which prohibits state agencies and local government entities from entering into taxpayer-funded contracts with corporations that discriminate against members of the firearm industry.
Some Learn the Hard Way
What J.P. Wealth Management is doing is dumbfounding. President Trump’s Executive Order is clear. Comptroller of the Currency Gould left no uncertainty that banking discrimination for “woke” political ideologies is a stained remnant of the past. All banking services must be offered to customers based on objective risk criteria. The era of corporate boardroom executives administering public policy from Wall Street ivory towers by fiat is over.
Some banks seem to be learning. Citigroup recently recanted its antigun positions and publicly stated it would conduct business based on financial risk, instead of the ill-defined “reputational risk” that banks used to justify freezing out gun and ammunition businesses. NSSF is cautiously optimistic that Citigroup’s reversal is genuine, but we’re watching and waiting for evidence that firearm businesses are again banking with the corporate financial provider. “Trust but verify,” as President Ronald Reagan used to say.
J.P. Morgan Wealth Management has a choice to embrace President Trump’s Executive Order or be subject to corrective action by OCC regulators. The 180-day clock is ticking. Noncompliance of a presidential Executive Order and the federal agency charged with regulating your industry, not to mention inviting Congress to drag the CEO in front of a public hearing, doesn’t sound like a winning strategy. But it’s a strategy that J.P. Wealth Management appears to be pursuing, nonetheless.
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