Trump’s Long-Favored Banks Pull Back Amid Fallout From Riot

(Bloomberg) -- Two of Donald Trump’s favored banks are pulling away from the billionaire president in the wake of last week’s deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Deutsche Bank AG has decided to refrain from further business with Trump and his company, said a person with knowledge of the matter, asking not to be identified because the deliberations were confidential. Trump owes the Frankfurt-based lender more than $300 million.

And Signature Bank, the New York lender that’s long catered to his family, said it’s cutting ties while it presses for his resignation. Signature is closing two personal accounts in which Trump held about $5.3 million, a spokesperson for the firm said on Monday.

“We believe the appropriate action would be the resignation of the president of the United States, which is in the best interests of our nation and the American people,” the bank said in a separate statement on Monday.

The lenders are following social media outlets and other companies in suspending ties with the president after he encouraged attendees at a rally last week to march on the Capitol, where they stormed the building and interrupted the certification of the electoral college vote. At least five people died in the mayhem and its immediate aftermath.

Read more: Trump sparks a crisis for his empire just before return

Signature bank has served Trump and others in his orbit, including Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and Michael Cohen. In 2011, the bank appointed Ivanka to its board, but she stepped down a couple of years later. The New York Times reported the cutting of ties earlier on Monday.

“We have never before commented on any political matter and hope to never do so again,” Signature said in its statement. The bank will not do business in the future with any members of Congress who voted to disregard the electoral college, the spokesperson said.

Deutsche Bank said last month that Trump’s longtime banker resigned. Rosemary Vrablic, who worked in the private banking division, helped manage Trump’s relationship with the bank as the German lender lent hundreds of millions of dollars of loans to Trump’s company over a number of years. That relationship subjected the lender to pressure from lawmakers and prosecutors for information during Trump’s presidency.

(Updates with departure of Trump banker in last paragraph.)