A nonprofit dedicated to promoting religious freedom has had its Chase Bank account closed without being given a reason, according to the nonprofit’s founder and executive director.
Sam Brownback, founder of the National Committee for Religious Freedom (NCRF), and the Rev. Justin Murff, the NCRF’s executive director, have expressed frustration over what they see as a heavy-handed measure taken with practically no explanation and no recourse for the bank’s former customers.
“We’ve written to JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon; it’s been a good two weeks now, and have not heard anything back and have not been directly contacted by the bank,” Brownback told The Epoch Times. “They sent the funds back to us, and they just closed the account.”
Brownback, a former governor of Kansas, U.S. senator, and U.S. ambassador at large for international religious freedom, describes the NCRF as a nonprofit entity, classifiable for tax purposes as a 501(c)(4), with an interfaith character that includes members of the Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu faiths; he says it’s bipartisan in nature and open to a range of political viewpoints and affiliations.
However, the bank clearly isn’t satisfied with Brownback’s or Murff’s characterization of the NCRF and its status and composition.
‘Decision Was Permanent’
The organization opened the account on April 15, Murff said. Only three weeks later, while he was attending a conference in Sweden, Murff received a call from Brownback, who told him of having tried to make a deposit, only to find out that the bank had closed the account. When Murff reached out to the bank to try to find out what had happened, further surprises were in store, he said.“I called Chase, and they told me there was a note on the account saying that the decision had been made at the corporate office to close the account and that the decision was permanent, it was irreversible, and there was a flag stipulating that they were not to provide the customer with any further information,” he told The Epoch Times.
“I said, ‘I know there’s an escalation team at Chase,’ so I had a phone call with the bank and told them I didn’t understand what was going on. And they told me the exact same thing.”
He pursued the matter doggedly and had three separate calls with representatives of the bank on June 1. However, he said, everyone he spoke to kept passing him to someone else.
Finally, Murff was able to get in touch with a New York-based official, who told him that he and his colleagues had failed to provide the bank with requested documents within 60 days of opening the account.
But the bank’s motives for closing the account remain unclear, given that the account was allegedly closed within three weeks, which is well within the 60-day window.
“We don’t understand why they would do something like this, but they told us this decision was secret and made at the corporate level,” said Brownback, noting that other organizations, the names of which he isn’t at liberty to disclose, have been met with similar treatment.
“We’ll continue to reach out to Chase Bank and see if we can get an answer from them, and we’ll also continue to try and collect other entities to go public with what happened to them.”
Representatives for Chase Bank didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.
The NCRF has opened a new account with a different bank.
Brownback, in his letter to Dimon, and Murff, in his discussion with The Epoch Times, both emphasized the irony that Dimon himself, during testimony last month before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, specifically singled out freedom of religion as one of the advantages of living in the United States in 2022.
Dimon stated, “We live in the greatest country in the world, predicated on foundational beliefs in freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise, the sanctity of the individual, and the promise of equality and opportunity for all.”
