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A former Citigroup executive says she was sacked after raising concerns about the Wall Street bank’s courting of Donald Trump as a client and expressing broader worries about its risk-management practices.
The former managing director in Citi’s wealth unit filed a lawsuit in Brooklyn federal court this week, alleging that the bank retaliated against her after she had identified “several risk-management deficiencies”. The lawsuit was filed anonymously, using the pseudonym Jane Doe.
The plaintiff claims that she was forced out of Citi in April 2025 after identifying “regulatory and compliance risks”, according to the heavily redacted complaint. The complaint said that the former executive had raised concerns about so-called know your customer checks, used to judge risks when financial institutions take on new clients.
In one redacted portion, the former executive claims that she had raised some of the concerns as Citi was last year weighing whether to open an account for Trump, according to people familiar with the dispute.
In particular, the executive claims that she had flagged up her concerns about discussions over opening a so-called numbered account for the US president, which would have made it anonymous to most employees and therefore hard to monitor.
The former executive alleges that she was fired days after she escalated worries about the internal process around potentially taking on Trump as a client to a more senior executive, the people said.
It is not known whether Citi ultimately opened an account for Trump.
Citi said in a statement: “As with the other complaint filed by this plaintiff’s attorney against Citi, this suit has absolutely zero merit and we’ll demonstrate that through the legal process.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Banks are required to conduct checks when they enter relationships with all new clients. More comprehensive due diligence is required for “politically exposed people”, such as heads of state.
These individuals are seen as riskier due to their profiles and connections.
The alleged “debanking” of US politicians has become an increasingly heated issue, with complaints from certain groups or industries that they were unfairly denied banking services because of their political affiliations.
The Trump administration has sought to crack down on these alleged practices, leading US regulators to scrap “reputational risk” concerns from their supervisory framework. Earlier this year, Trump sued JPMorgan Chase, seeking at least $5bn in damages over claims the bank had unfairly closed his accounts on political grounds.
JPMorgan has said that Trump’s lawsuit has no merit and that it “does not close accounts for political or religious reasons”.
After the start of Trump’s second term in January 2025, Citi changed its code of conduct to state that it “does not discriminate on the basis of political affiliation”. It simultaneously scrapped its own restrictions around banking firearms companies, which it had implemented after the 2018 Parkland school shooting in Florida.
Citi chief executive Jane Fraser has a warm relationship with Trump, whom she personally congratulated after his election to the White House. She has met with him regularly and was one of several business leaders accompanying him on a trip to China last month.
Last week, Trump praised Fraser on social media, saying: “Congratulations to Jane F and ALL of her great people. They’ve worked really hard! BIG comeback for CITI!!!”.
Source:
www.ft.com
