The bank accounts belonged to Mercola Market, a health business owned by Dr. Mercola based in Cape Coral, Florida. On July 13, Chase notified the company in a letter that it had to close its account operations by September. At the same time, the company’s CEO, Steven A. Rye and his wife, along with CFO Amy Legaspi, were informed that they have until August to close their personal accounts and set up new ones at a different bank.
According to letters obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation, the bank stated: “After careful consideration, we decided to close your accounts because of unexpected activity on this or another Chase account.”
A more specific reason was never provided, and Rye said the bank told him that they could not explain why the accounts were being closed for legal reasons.
However, Rye told the Daily Caller that he feels this is related to Dr. Mercola’s stance on COVID-19 vaccines. He explained: “I believe they cancelled all of the accounts because of Dr. Mercola’s (our employer) opinions.”
“He … co-authored the best selling book The Truth About COVID-19 which exposed the likelihood that this virus was engineered in a laboratory funded by the NIH. He correctly predicted the vaccines would not prevent transmission or infection of COVID-19. He has been directly censored by the Biden administration and is being targeted by politically weaponized agencies.”
Dr. Mercola has come under fire for his concerns about the dangers of the vaccine, being cited as a top spreader of COVID-19-related misinformation in “The Disinformation Dozen” report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
Journalist Paul D. Thacker later revealed that files he obtained from Twitter showed that the social media platform subsequently censored him on the grounds that he provided vaccine misinformation.
JPMorgan Chase accused by multiple parties of "debanking" conservatives
Earlier this year, a group of shareholders called out JPMorgan Chase for “debanking” conservatives while knowingly permitting sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein to keep accounts open that he used to make payments to victims. A report showed that the bank raised questions about the wisdom of keeping him as a client in light of his sex offenses, but the concerns were ultimately tossed aside, and his accounts were allowed to stay open.
The Free Enterprise Project at the National Center for Public Policy Research (FEP) and the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), both of which own Chase stock, introduced shareholder proposals taking the bank to task for closing accounts belonging to conservatives without providing any explanation or warning. One such group that the bank discriminated against was the National Committee for Religious Freedom, a nonprofit devoted to defending Americans’ constitutional rights to religious freedom.
NLPC Corporate Integrity Project Director Paul Chesser said: “This is evil; Chase let the cash flow to aid and abet Jeffrey Epstein’s sick and disgusting global sex trafficking operation.”
He continued: "But they shut down its services to a praiseworthy and respectable initiative by an upstanding public servant, and want to hide the reasons for it all from shareholders. The bank is obviously embarrassed and it should be.”
In May, 19 state attorneys general sent a letter to CEO Jamie Dimon accusing the financial institution of systematically shutting conservatives’ accounts because of their political beliefs. They cited numerous examples of the bank closing accounts of conservative and pro-life groups.
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