Former First Lady Melania Trump was cut off by a bank and an email service provider upon leaving the White House. Mrs. Trump believes these actions were politically motivated, providing an example of the rising trend of “debanking”, where individuals and organizations are denied essential services due to their political affiliations or opinions.
“The bank suddenly informed me they will not be able to do business with me anymore,” and a “very prominent email distribution service provider just rapidly terminated my agreement,” the former First Lady confirmed during an interview.
Mrs. Trump described how these actions not only affected her personally but also had far-reaching consequences on her charitable work. Political bias has also had a more general impact on her capacity to do good works—for instance, a university initially accepted her donations to support scholarships for foster children but later refused them after realizing she was the funding source. “They didn’t want to do business with me because of my political affiliation,” she said.
Debanking has been used to disrupt many conservatives’ activism and personal lives. For instance, Brexit leader Nigel Farage was debanked by Coutts, a subsidiary of NatWest. The chief executive had to resign after leaking to the BBC that Farage’s account was closed due to insufficient funds.
In addition to being a breach of privacy, this explanation was contradicted by the discovery of a “Stasi-style surveillance report” on Farage by the bank’s so-called “reputation risk committee,” detailing his ties to Donald Trump and vaccine skeptic tennis star Novak Djokovic and his interviews with Alex Jones, among other supposed transgressions.
.@MELANIATRUMP: “I was all agreed they would accept my donations for foster students… The board of directors said we cannot go on. It’s very sad because who suffered? Children from foster communities. They didn’t have a scholarships somebody would provide with them. They didn’t… pic.twitter.com/aUWsrJDSlf
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 6, 2024