Senate hearing opens on alleged "debanking" of crypto and political actors; FDIC documents cited

A Republican member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs opened a hearing on alleged "debanking," accusing federal regulators and banks of cutting off services to digital-asset firms and conservative-aligned businesses and citing freshly released FDIC supervisory documents.

The member framed the dispute as one of equal access to financial services, connecting it to a personal family history of race-based redlining in the Jim Crow South and to his own experience receiving a character loan from a community bank. He said access to credit "is one of the cornerstones of building your American dream."

The member explicitly accused regulators of a renewed effort he called "Operation Choke Point 2.0," saying federal agencies used their power to pressure banks to end relationships with certain customers. "I wholeheartedly believe that de-banking someone over their political ideology is un-American and goes against the core values that our nation was founded upon," he said. He added that FDIC supervisory documents released that day "paint a disgusting and disheartening picture of abuse."

The member announced witnesses expected to testify later in the hearing, including the CEO of Anchorage Digital, the CEO of Old Glory Bank (a bank the member said was created to serve those who had been debanked), a legal expert with experience navigating regulatory matters, and a policy expert from the Brookings Institution. He said the hearing would examine "the role both regulators and financial institutions have played in these harmful practices, which hurt not just businesses, but also consumers and our entire economy."

The member praised the FDIC's new leadership for releasing the documents and for a stated commitment to transparency, and he said he would examine those documents "in greater detail." He called for a bipartisan solution and said "No regulator and no bank is above the principles of fairness and market access." The opening statement closed by stressing oversight and accountability and by inviting testimony from the scheduled witnesses.

Provenance: Opening remarks and allegations are drawn from the committee member's opening statement at 00:00:00–00:07:08.