The Timothy Two Project International’s mission is to do as the Apostle Paul instructed his protege Timothy: Teach others to teach the Gospel. TTPI has for more than 15 years reached indigenous pastors in some 70 countries — in some of the more impoverished places on Earth where there is little or no formal biblical and theological training available.
In 2020, Bank of America canceled the nonprofit’s account, an account the Timothy Two Project had held since 2011. Suddenly, inexplicably, TTPI was “operating a business type we have chosen not to service,” according to the financial services titan.
Steve Curtis, TTPI’s international director, explained in the Washington Examiner in 2023 that the notice came out of the blue.
“We opened our Bank of America account in 2011, and used it to make small grants and pay our largely U.S.-based staff members. Our ministry focus has stayed consistent in whatever may qualify as a ‘business type’ since we started our bank account, and we are accredited with the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability,” Curtis wrote. “So we were surprised and confused by the bank’s decision.”
Major financial institutes were “debanking” all manner of right-of-center individuals and organizations during the Biden years, a scary era of prosecution and persecution of the left’s political enemies.
Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, U.S. Bank, Citibank, Wells Fargo, and several other mammoth U.S. financial institutions cited “reputation risk” in denying service to American consumers between 2020 and 2025, according to a damning new report issued by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The 45-page report titled, “Debanked: Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans,” is an indictment on the left’s cancel culture fury and the Goliath banks that were “willing or unwitting accomplices” in the sweeping silencing treatment, said Jeremy Tedesco, special counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom.
‘Now We Have the Goods’
ADF and other First Amendment defenders had for years warned of a growing debanking effort targeting “disfavored” organizations and industries — aka the left’s ideological enemies. Tedesco said critics scoffed. They said the red flag raisers “didn’t have the goods.”
“Well now we have the goods,” the civil rights attorney says in an upcoming episode of The Federalist Radio Hour. “We have the biggest banking regulator in the U.S. government saying, ‘This is happening, and it’s happening at a wide scale at the biggest banks in the country.’”
Under the leadership of @POTUS and @SecScottBessent, @USComptroller Jonathan V. Gould is ending the weaponization of finance. Read about the OCC’s supervisory review of debanking activities in its nine largest national banks and its efforts to guarantee fair banking for all… pic.twitter.com/ZQ2X6ciSOd
— OCC (@USOCC) October 14, 2026
ADF has represented several clients that have had their bank accounts shut down “unexpectedly with minimal or hollow explanations.” Its website provides a page for victims to report debanking incidents.
ADF’s clients include Indigenous Advance Ministries, a Christian organization akin to the Timothy Two Project that serves Uganda faith communities. The organization received similar letters in 2023 from its financial services provider, Bank of America, notifying the ministry that its accounts would be closed. Why? The big bank determined Indigenous Advance was “operating in a business type we have chosen not to service.” After an eight-year relationship, why did BOA suddenly decide not to provide financial services to the Christian organization?
The answer is manifold. But in many cases, according to the OCC report, the banks succumbed to public pressure from far-left groups like the notorious Southern Poverty Law Center. SPLC, now under federal indictment on fraud allegations, has spent years falsely accusing conservatives and right-of-center groups of being “hate groups,” white supremacists, terror organizations. It’s all done in the name of “reputation risk.”
“The banks relied on various sources to inform these decisions, including the results of negative news and other background screenings aimed at searching public and nonpublic sources for unfavorable information,” the report states.
“They also relied on non-traditional sources to inform risk determinations. Examples of these sources included the opinions of advocacy organizations, like the Southern Poverty Law Center, third-party environmental and social governance reports, and complaint data. Reliance on these sources added another layer of potential subjectiveness and bias to an already speculative determination,” it continued.
The SPLC has falsely declared Alliance Defending Freedom a “hate group”. As ADF summed up, the disgraced leftist SPLC, itself a hate group, used “hate” labels and its “Hate Map” as “little more than a smear tactic … to reputationally harm anyone who dares to oppose its radical ideology.”
‘Bad for a Free Society’
But it seems the big banks, fearing the big mobs and bad press, caved to the will of myriad activists that forced their agenda on everything from “climate change” to “social justice” into the decision-making processes — who gets an account and who doesn’t.
“It’s important for Americans to understand a politicized banking industry is bad for a free society,” Tedesco told The Federalist. “We don’t want banks calling balls and strikes on whose views are allowed in the public square and whose aren’t.”
But that’s exactly what has been happening, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
Credit: The OCC
The OCC’s investigation was driven by an Aug. 7, 2025 executive order signed by President Donald Trump. It states that “no American should be denied access to financial services because of their constitutionally or statutorily protected beliefs, affiliations, or political views.” And the EO affirms banking decisions should be based on “individualized, objective, and risk-based analyses.” No politics and political preferences.
Investigators reviewed nearly 100,000 complaints relating to the banks and other OCC-regulated institutions. OCC also examined complaints from the financial institutions, government agencies, and third parties. And the review included “transaction testing of hundreds of individual bank decisions during the review period.”
In December, the OCC issued a preliminary report which found that between 2020 and 2023, the banks “made inappropriate distinctions among customers in the provision of financial services of their lawful business activities.” The banks, according to that report, required escalating reviews and approvals before providing certain customers access.
‘If the Political Winds Shift’
During the period under review, JPMorgan Chase credit card processor WePay denied payment processing services to mainstream GOP-affiliated organization Defense of Liberty. The roadblock forced the Missouri-based political action committee to cancel an event featuring Donald Trump, Jr.
Why?
Chase said it would not provide service to anyone who promotes “hate, violence, racial intolerance, terrorism, the financial exploitation of a crime …” The bank, which holds north of $5 trillion in assets, reversed its position following public pressure led by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Missouri treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick.
The banks’ reputation risk screening systems balked at terms such as “America First,” “Make America Great,” and “MAGA” tracked on websites, profiles, and transaction data, according to the report. Several alert terms were added following the Jan. 6, 2021 riots at the Capitol.
Credit: The OCC
A JPMorgan spokesperson told CBS News that the bank’s policies prohibit discrimination “based on political or religious views.” The official said WePay’s processes “did not meet our expectations. We identified it, corrected it, and the business no longer operates.”
But Tedesco said the problems persist.
“I don’t think we’ll ever be rid of this,” the ADF attorney said.
Combatting such discriminatory conduct will take litigation, legislative reform and, maybe more importantly, internal bank reforms that need to happen, he said. The Trump administration has made some significant regulatory strides and there is bipartisan support in Congress for protections, Tedesco said.
“But the reforms are not going to last if the political winds shift,” he warned, foreseeing a return to politically-driven debanking if Democrats wrest control of Congress from Republicans in next month’s midterm elections.
In his op-ed in The Washington Examiner back in 2023, Curtis, the founder and international director of the Timothy Two Project, wrote that he quickly learned his ministry was not alone. He read about Bank of America’s similar punishment of Christian preacher, author, and podcaster Lance Wallnau, who reported the financial services giant had frozen his account. The account was reinstated only after ” bank employees forced him to answer a series of invasive questions.”
“How many Christian ministries has Bank of America canceled in the same way?” Curtis pondered at the time. “Is Bank of America testing the waters to see if Western Christians will stand by idly while their accounts are closed for no reason?”
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.