The Capitol was violently captured, and Trump would be impeached for the second time… American politics was further torn at the time of the presidential handover of power.
At this time, a group of heavyweight investment banks and banks in the United States made their first statement that they would suspend donations to both parties in the near future and “rethink the political donation strategy”.
Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC) reported on the 10th that JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States in terms of assets, announced that it would suspend bipartisan donations to the United States for at least half a year.
Citigroup announced that it would suspend donations to all members of Congress in the first quarter of this year.
O’Harolan, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, said that he would use this time to “rethink the political donation strategy”. The group’s corporate responsibility representative described the U.S.
as facing “an unprecedented health, economic and political crisis” and that it should now be committed to public governance and helping those in need.” There will be plenty of time to run for the election in the future.
A large number of Trump supporters occupied the U.S. Capitol on January 6, killing five people, shocking the United States and the world.
In response to Trump’s “incitement” and Congress’s efforts to challenge the election results, some American companies have launched a boycott, such as several large technology companies “blocking” Trump on social media.
Others are directly “stopping money” against pro-Trump congressmen.
Marriott International, the world’s largest hotel group, and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, the largest health insurance institution in the United States, announced that they would no longer donate to Republican lawmakers who openly challenged Biden’s election results.
However, J.P. Morgan and Citigroup, which responded to the boycott, did not only target the Republican Party, but suspended donations to both parties at the same time.
According to OpenSecrets, a public information website of the non-governmental organization Response Politics Center, JPMorgan Chase donated a total of $5.35 million during the 2020 U.S. election, ranking 108th out of more than 20,000 institutions.
In 2019, the group invested $2.81 million in lobbying. Citigroup contributed approximately $2.11 million to the general election, but lobbied funds amounted to $4.4 million in 2019.
In reality, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup belong to “two bets” and “bump money” on the Democratic and Republican election candidates and the Political Action Committee.
But JPMorgan Chase donated about $1.64 million to the Democratic Party, which is twice as much as the Republican Party. Moreover, the Biden camp received the largest donations from JPMorgan Chase, reaching $956,000, more than four times higher than the Trump campaign.
Citigroup’s total election donation is even smaller, but it still donates the most to Biden, about 247,000 US dollars, and only a poor $43,000 donation to Trump.
The group chose to suspend donations to all members of Congress through the Political Action Committee (PAC) in the first quarter of this year, that is, for the next three months, probably considering the upcoming second impeachment of Trump in the House of Representatives, when the two parties will “stand in line” again.
“We’ll make sure we don’t support candidates who don’t follow the rule of law,” Candy Wolf, Citi’s head of global government affairs, told employees in an internal memo Friday.
CNBC reported that large financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs Group, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo Group have not yet taken a position over the past weekend.
A Bank of America spokesman said that the “shocking attack on the U.S. Congress” would affect the agency’s decision to donate in the 2022 congressional midterm election, but did not disclose more information.
Bloomberg revealed on the evening of the 10th that Goldman Sachs also plans to suspend all donations and is considering reducing future donations for lawmakers who challenge the election results.
