Debanking Exposed: How Obama & Biden Weaponized Banks Against Conservatives"

00:00
Good Thursday morning, Patriots. I'm your host, John O'Connor. Software programmer by day, conservative truth-seeker by night. And this is O'Connor's Right Stand. How's everyone doing on day two of Chuck Schumer's government shutdown? Just making sure that you remember that this is 100 % Chuckie's shutdown. And don't let those liberals tell you otherwise. And don't worry, I am sure you've heard enough about that, so I will spare you that in today's episode. Anyways.

00:29
My fiance and I are headed out town for a small vacation and to do some exploring. My fiance and I spent the week working on the house and getting it ready for the fall. And I have to say, there's something about October in East Tennessee that just feels right. I think it's partly because I get to see the mountain trees from the valley I live in change colors on my daily walks. Every day it looks a little bit different, but...

00:56
As much as I'd love to talk about the changing leaves and slightly crisp air, we've got some serious business to cover today. Grab your coffee, because today we're exposing one of the most insidious weapons that the left has ever used against conservatives. And most Americans have no idea it's happening. We're talking about debanking. When banks close your accounts or deny you services not because you've done anything illegal, but because someone in power doesn't like your politics, religion, or business.

01:25
This isn't a conspiracy theory. We've got house oversight investigations, bank executive whistleblowers, and evidence showing how Obama and Biden turned America's financial system into a political weapon. But here's what bothers me. It took until Trump's second term for Republicans to act. Where were they during the first term? The right stand starts now.

02:05
What would you do if your bank account closed tomorrow morning with no warning? Just a letter. We're terminating your account in 30 days. You can't process payroll. You can't accept credit cards. You can't get a mortgage. Your life is financially paralyzed and you have committed no crime. Well, that's debanking. Andrew Sorrell, Alabama State Auditor, lived this.

02:34
Andrew owns Gold Guns and Guitars Gun Store. One day, his credit card processor sent a letter, in 30 days we're closing your account. There was no explanation. His business processed 1.5 million annually through cards. Then, his insurance company dropped him too. His broker told him, this is happening to all gun stores. I'm a victim of political debanking, Andrew told Fox News. I didn't even realize it.

03:04
Here's the disturbing part. Andrew is an elected state official with political connections. If they will do this to a state auditor, what chance do regular citizens have? Most victims don't realize they're being targeted. They think the bank made a business decision. They don't know federal regulators are the ones behind it.

03:26
So, how exactly did we get here? The story goes back to 2013 when Obama's DOJ launched Operation Chokepoint. The name tells you everything. They wanted to choke out legal businesses the administration didn't like. They couldn't get Congress to ban these industries, so they pressured banks using federal regulators. House oversight found the smoking gun. The FDIC created a list of 30 industries labeled high-risk.

03:55
and told banks to avoid them. Gun dealers, ammunition sellers, payday lenders, tobacco companies, even coin dealers. These weren't illegal businesses. They were constitutionally protected industries that liberals hated. Representative Darrell Issa said the DOJ was conscripting banks to do their bidding, like forcing soldiers into service. The government was drafting private banks as weapons in their political war.

04:24
Mike Schuetz owned Hawkins Guns LLC in Wisconsin. Mike was a former state probation officer, not some radical. When he was a state employee, he'd actually picketed against Governor Scott Walker's reforms with his union. This is a working class guy. His credit union called him and said, you need to close your account. Why? We do not service businesses that deal in guns, is what he was told.

04:52
The U.S. Consumer Coalition discovered federal examiners had pressured the credit union. Mike had audio recordings proving it. This is a backdoor way to infringe on Second Amendment rights, Mike told Breitbart News. This happened nationwide. In Miami, Henderson, Phoenix. In April 2013, Bank of America froze American Spirit Arms assets in Arizona. Just locked them out of their own money.

05:21
Representative Jim Jordan grilled the FDIC chairman in a 2016 hearing comparing it to the IRS scandal. They targeted them, just like this list targets businesses you don't like. Operation Choke Point supposedly ended when Trump took office in 2017. His administration announced they were shutting it down. But here's what didn't happen. Nobody got fired. Not one regulator lost their job.

05:50
They didn't reform the regulations that made it possible. They just told agencies to stop and move on. So those bureaucrats kept their positions. They waited. And when Biden got inaugurated in January of 2021, they fired it right back up. I mean, why wouldn't they? They had zero consequences. And patriots, that's on Republicans too. You can't just declare a corporate program ended.

06:20
You have to root out the corruption, reform the rules, fire the people who abused power. Otherwise, it comes right back. Which is exactly what happened.

06:32
So, Biden takes office and the same agencies launched Operation Chokepoint 2.0. This time, they've massively expanded the targets. Biden stacked financial regulatory positions with people who hate cryptocurrency. They wanted to kill crypto before it could challenge government-controlled currency. Former Senator Pat Toomey, 12 years on Senate Banking Committee, former banker himself, wrote in Fox News,

07:03
Their bank accounts had been shut down. Banks couldn't process payrolls. Employees were personally debanked. Some couldn't get mortgages or checking accounts. Chris Lane, former CTO of Silvergate Bank, watched regulators deliberately destroy his bank. Documents showed Biden's people instructed banks to pause all crypto activity. Regulators severely limited our deposits for digital asset clients, Lane wrote. There when our business model

07:33
He called it being shot in the back by his own government. Mark Anderson revealed on Joe Rogan that he personally knew 30-plus tech founders debanked for political reasons. But it wasn't just crypto. After January 6th, banks participated in government surveillance targeting conservatives. Regulators suggested banks flag people shopping at Cabela's or Bass Pro Shop or making Venmo payments with terms like Trump or MAGA.

08:02
If you bought fishing gear at Cabela's, you might be flagged as a domestic extremist. If you Venmoed with MAGA 2024 in the comments, regulators from what wanted it reported. House Oversight Chairman James Comer confirmed he'd seen numerous instances of conservatives being debanked. The honest answer, probably both government pressure and some banks were volunteering this. Bank of America has been one of the worst offenders.

08:31
Christian organizations became targets. Bank of America shut down Indigenous Advanced Ministries, a charity helping at-risk children and sex trafficking victims in Uganda. They claimed it because they don't serve businesses outside the US, but that's false. The real reason? Christian beliefs. They also closed a Memphis church's account for donating to this ministry. 15 state financial officers sent Bank of America a scathing letter.

09:00
But the most stunning victim? President Trump himself. In August, Trump revealed he'd been debanked by multiple major institutions, despite being a Forbes billionaire with excellent credit. According to the New York Post and Daily Wire, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America refused business with Trump after January 6. One JPMorgan executive said regulators put the fear of God in them about doing business with Trump. Another explained,

09:30
After January 6, Trump was radioactive. Regulators made it crystal clear we shouldn't do business with him. It wasn't a suggestion. It was a directive. Unelected bureaucrats in Biden's administration financially blacklisted a former U.S. president. Not through legal process, courts, or Congress. Just regulatory intimidation. Melania wrote about being debanked in her memoir. Donald Trump Jr. got the same treatment. Now,

09:59
Some might say Trump was controversial after January 6, so banks had concerns. But that's the point. Banks shouldn't make political judgments about who deserves services. If Trump committed crimes, prosecute him. If not, he has the same right to banking as anyone else. If they can debank a billionaire former president with unlimited legal resources and a massive platform, they can debank anyone. Your church. Your business.

10:28
any conservative organization. This is financial tyranny, and it runs on one vague phrase, reputational risk.

10:39
Here's how the scam works. Bank regulators told institutions to assess reputational risk when deciding clients. Sounds reasonable. Avoid customers who might damage your reputation. But reputational risk was never defined in law. It's not financial risk or legal risk. It became a catch-all for all political discrimination. A gun store might get CNN coverage. Reputational risk. Conservative activists might tweet something.

11:08
Reputational risk. Crypto challenges government currency. Reputational risk. A senior banking executive told Fox News anonymously, when your regulator gives you a suggestion, it's not a suggestion, it's an order. The political stuff is very real. Former Senator Toomey explained, banks compete ruthlessly for customers. De-banking is almost entirely driven by vague regulation or regulatory abuse.

11:36
Banks want deposits and loans. That's their business model. But when regulators threaten intensive audits, massive fines, and enforcement actions for serving certain clients, what choice do you have? Biden found a way to bypass Congress, courts, and the Constitution. Just regulatory threats to accomplish political goals you couldn't achieve legitimately. But Trump learned from his first term mistakes.

12:06
On August 7th, two months ago, Trump signed guaranteeing fair banking for all Americans. First, it bans reputational risk as grounds for denying services. Second, regulators have 180 days to scrub it from all guidance. Third, it requires reviews of banks for past politicized debanking with real consequences, such as fines and consent decrees. Fourth,

12:31
The Small Business Administration must make lenders identify victims and reinstate them by December 5th. Fifth, regulators must find religious discrimination cases and send them to the Attorney General. Three weeks ago, the Office of the Comptroller announced implementation. Jonathan Gould says the OCC is ending the weaponization of the financial system. SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler says the Obama Administration

13:00
Banks have weaponized the financial system. Under President Trump, whose own family was debanked, those days are over. This is great, but I have to ask, why did it take until August 2025? Trump was inaugurated in January. That's seven months while Operation Chokepoint 2.0 continued to destroy businesses. And why didn't Trump do this in his first term? Operation Chokepoint ran 2013 to 2017.

13:30
His administration supposedly ended it, but never banned the practice or reformed regulations, just told agencies to stop with zero enforcement. To Trump's credit, this time he's doing it right, requiring investigations, imposing consequences, demanding victims be made whole. That should have been done in 2017. But Republicans seem to only act when personally hurt.

13:57
Where was this urgency in 2017 when gun stores were being destroyed? This reactive approach is a genuine weakness in our movement.

14:07
Now that Trump's executive order has given people some protection and political cover, victims are finally feeling safe enough to tell their stories publicly. Senator Tim Scott held hearings back in January, and he didn't mince words. He called Biden's entire debanking operation disgusting. He brought in real business owners who got crushed by this. Nathan McCauley from Anchorage Digital, Evan Hafer, who founded Black Rifle Coffee Company. These are legitimate businesses that got destroyed for political reasons.

14:36
Former Ambassador Sam Brownback testified about something really interesting. He said JPMorgan Chase debanked his nonprofit, the National Committee for Religious Freedom, back in 2022. Now, JPMorgan insists up and down that they never engage in political debanking. But here's what I find fascinating. In 2025, they suddenly felt the need to update their official code of conduct.

15:03
to explicitly state they don't discriminate based on political views or religious beliefs. So my question is, if you weren't doing it in the first place, why did you feel compelled to add that specific language? Bank of America, JP Morgan, Citigroup, they've all put out these carefully worded press releases saying they welcome Trump's executive order and look forward to working with the administration, which is just corporate speak for, oh crap, we got caught.

15:32
Please don't hit us with any more massive fines. Representative Andy Barr from Kentucky is now working on legislation to turn Trump's executive order into permanent federal law, which is smart. Executive orders can be undone. Laws are much harder to reverse. But patriots, I have to be brutally honest about something that's been bothering me, and you might be really frustrated with the direction of this episode.

15:58
Where was this coalition in 2014 when Operation Choke Point was first exposed? Where was it in 2018? Why did it take until so many businesses were destroyed and so many lives were ruined before conservatives finally organized to fight back? This reactive approach is a real weakness in our movement. The left spends decades building institutional control. We wait until we're getting pummeled before we react.

16:27
Now, some of you listening might be thinking, John, I'm not a gun dealer. I don't own a crypto company. I'm just trying to pay my bills and take care of my family. Why should I care about this debanking stuff? Let me tell you exactly why you should care. Because today it's gun stores and outspoken conservatives getting debanked. Tomorrow it could be your church if your pastor gives a sermon that offends the wrong people. It could be your kids' Christian school. It could be the crisis pregnancy center in your town.

16:57
It could be you personally if you donate to the wrong political candidate. If they can debank a former president of the United States, someone with billions of dollars and unlimited lawyers and one of the biggest media platforms on earth, they can debank absolutely anyone. This is fundamentally about whether we still have the rule of law in America. It's about whether American citizens can be financially destroyed for exercising their constitutional rights to free speech, religious freedom,

17:27
and the Second Amendment. The political left figured out something that Republicans have been way too slow to understand. If you can't beat your opponents at the ballot box, if you can't pass laws through Congress, you can still crush them by capturing control of the administrative state and weaponizing federal agencies against them. We've seen this playbook before. The IRS targeted conservative nonprofits under Obama. The DOJ is prosecuting pro-life activists for peaceful protests.

17:56
The FBI conducted armed raids on Trump supporters' at 6am. It's all the same strategy. Use government power to silence, intimidate, and financially destroy their political enemies. And you know what really gets me? The only reason this is finally getting exposed and fixed is because it happened to Trump personally. He got debanked. His family got debanked. So now he actually understands the threat at a gut level, and he's taking real action.

18:27
That's great and don't get me wrong, but it's also frustrating because it makes you wonder if Trump hadn't been personally targeted by this, would Republicans even be doing anything about it right now?

18:40
For over a decade since Obama's 2013 Operation Chokepoint, federal regulators weaponized banking against citizens refusing left-wing ideology. They targeted gun stores, crypto firms, Christian charities, pro-life groups, conservative activists, even a former president. Using vague reputational risk, they pressured banks to close accounts and freeze assets without due process. Bank executive whistleblowers confirm regulatory suggestions were orders

19:10
backed by threats. This is un-American, tyrannical, communist China behavior. Trump is exposed and is dismantling this operation. His order bans reputational risk for politics, requires reviews, mandates victim reinstatement, and empowers attorney general action. The OCC is investigating the nine largest banks. Victims are coming forward, Congress is holding hearings, legislation moves to make

19:40
Protection is permanent. This is accountability. But we needed honesty about where Republicans fell short. Trump's first administration should have done this in 2017. Congressional Republicans should have held hearings back in 2014. Conservative organizations should have organized before thousands of businesses were destroyed. We celebrate the victory while learning. We must proactively defend freedoms. We can't wait until attack to fight back.

20:11
The left plays the long game, building institutional power over decades. We need to match that, not just defending, but building our own institutional power. Republicans controlled Congress and the White House 2017 through 2019. Why wasn't this fixed then? These are uncomfortable questions we need to ask. Both parties failed to protect Americans from administrative state overreach. Democrats weaponized it.

20:39
Republicans failed to dismantle it when they had the chance. This executive order is a start, but not enough. We need comprehensive civil service reform to fire corrupt bureaucrats. We need to strip agencies of regulatory power enabling this abuse. That's the real work ahead. Fundamentally reforming how government operates so this weaponization becomes impossible. Well, stay informed, patriots. Stay engaged.

21:09
Hold elected officials accountable, especially Republicans right now, because if we don't demand better from our own side, we'll keep getting reactive, insufficient responses. I will see you next Tuesday. Have an amazing weekend. This is John O'Connor, signing off.