#Wall Street tightens political donations following Capitol riot

Wall Street’s largest banks are shutting off the spigot of money to DC in the aftermath of last week’s deadly invasion of the US Capitol.

Megabanks like JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley are all pausing some or all of their political giving in light of efforts by a mob of Trump supporters to forcefully interfere with the transfer of power to Joe Biden, leaving five dead.

“We paused political contributions last week after the events we witnessed in Washington DC,” Goldman Sachs’ spokesman Jake Siewert said. “And are reviewing our policy to govern whom we support going forward.” 

Both JPMorgan and Goldman said they are pausing their giving across party lines for at least six months as they re-evalulate how they use their political action committee money to influence elections in the future.

The pauses were communicated by banks to staffers over the weekend as contributions to so-called PACs are collected from employees.

“The terrible events from the last week have prompted us to pause and re-evaluate our PAC giving strategies,” JPMorgan spokesperson Patricia Wexler told The Post. “We believe participating in the political process is essential, and fully intend to continue to support our PAC moving forward – but it will look different.”

Going forward, America’s largest bank by assets — run by outspoken chief executive Jamie Dimon — will focus its powerful JPMC PAC operation on supporting politicians that have proven track records on promoting diversity and inclusion, Wexler said.

Citi is pausing its contributions for the first three months of 2020, while Morgan Stanley is making the politically bold decision of pausing only to politicians who attempted to stop the certification of electoral college votes for Joe Biden’s presidential win last Wednesday. It will keep giving to other campaigns as it sees fit.

“Wall Street is turning off the spigot,” said one Wall Street insider Monday morning. “If anything is going to put some fear into the Beltway, it’s the finance sector giving zero dollars to the 2022 midterm [elections].”