People pardoned by Trump want banks to forgive their past, too

By Tom Schoenberg, Bloomberg News

WASHINGTON — It’s one thing to be cleared by the president. It’s another to be cleared by the bank.

Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy was pardoned at the end of President Donald Trump’s first term after a conviction for violating a U.S. lobbying law. Yet when he applied for an American Express Co. credit card this year, the lender denied him, citing his criminal history.

Mahmoud Reza Banki, the former chief financial officer of social media company X, says he ran into a similar problem. He claims JPMorgan Chase & Co. sought to close his accounts, citing a 15-year-old conviction for making false statements. He, too, had been pardoned at the end of Trump’s first term.

Both men are suing the financial institutions, claiming they were

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