Andrew Torba, the CEO of Gab, named and shamed the ECCU, a “Christian” bank that agreed to work with them, but then shut down their account only days later.
As National File reported, the New Tech, free-speech social media platform Gab, and its CEO Andrew Torba, have been banned from four banks in four weeks, due to media smears that the site is a “haven for extremists” and other spurious claims. “It’s getting to the point where we are seriously considering buying our own bank,” Torba said.
In a thread on Twitter, Torba discussed his dealings with one of the banks, the Evangelical Christian Credit Union, which he claimed “wasted a month of [his] time and sold [him] on working together to build God’s Kingdom only to ban Gab for no stated reason” after they had opened an account with them. “I was upfront with the ECCU before I even opened an account by explaining our entire business model and story, sending them months of bank statements, and having them chat with our processing partners to understand our business and plight,” Torba added.
After opening an account, and transferring “a large sum of money as an initial depost in good faith,” the account was later shut down for no reason. In an email sent by the ECCU to Torba, the bank had claimed that Torba, as the master signer of the account, had requested to close the account and dissolve his membership himself, not the other way around.
Then they have the gaul to email me and tell me that I requested that the account be closed, which of course is false. pic.twitter.com/238yKZUn3a
— Gab.com (@getongab) March 9, 2021
Two of the other banks had previously been named as being NBT Bank, which mostly operates in the northeast of the country, and City National Bank of Florida. At the time, he said that the other banks would be named “once the money we have in the accounts is out.” National File will continue to follow this story when the name of the last bank is revealed.
Torba suggested the Biden admin has resumed the Obama-era Operation Choke Point, which was originally meant to target banks who work with firearms companies. Instead, he told National File, the program is being directed at political enemies of the American regime. “If that was the case, [the ECCU] should have simply told me so versus handling it the way they did,” he added.
In the process of writing this article, the ECCU protected their Twitter account.
https://t.co/HMpC1CLB2N pic.twitter.com/oFm2sAzAMW
— Gab.com (@getongab) March 9, 2021