‘Bunch of Baloney!’ Elizabeth Warren THROWS DOWN With Jamie Dimon Over Chase Raking in Massive Overdraft Fees During Pandemic

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who has made it something of a personal mission to go after the banking industry during her time on Capitol Hill, got into a heated showdown with the man who is, arguably, that industry’s most well-known figure.

In a tense clash during a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Warren took on JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon for what she regarded as that bank’s excessive fees to their customers during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Mr. Dimon, how much did JPMorgan collect in overdraft fees from their consumers in 2020?” Warren said.

Dimon took umbrage with a series of figures Warren had just given about how much the big banks made in profit last year.

“I think your numbers are totally inaccurate,” Dimon said. “But we’ll have to sit down privately and go through that.”

Warren called out the bank for not offering the same default protection to its customers that it was offered by the fed during the pandemic.

“How much did JPMorgan collect in overdraft fees from their customers in 2020?” Warren asked again. “Do you know the number?”

“I don’t have the number in front of me,” Dimon sheepishly replied.

“I actually have the number in front of me,” Warren shot back. “It is $1.463 billion dollars. That’s nearly $1.5 billion that you collected from your customers.”

The Massachusetts senator went on to illustrate that the fees were hardly crucial to JPMorgan Chase’s survival, and that they still would have generated massive profit in 2020 even without those overdraft fees.

“Without the overdraft money, would your bank have been in financial trouble?” Warren asked.

Dimon sidestepped the query.

“We waive the fees for customers upon request if they’re under stress because of Covid,” Dimon said.

But Warren brought receipts — billions of dollars worth, in fact.

“I appreciate that you want to duck this question,” Warren said. “Do you know how much your profits would have been if you’d waived the overdraft as the regulators recommended? The answer is your profits would have been $27.6 billion dollars. I did the math for you.”

The senator went on to rip Dimon and the other big bank honchos testifying for, in her view, posturing about measures they took to protect their customers who were going through financial hardship in 2020.

“You would your colleagues come in today to talk about how you stepped up and took care of customers during the pandemic, and it’s a bunch of baloney!” Warren said. “In fact, it’s about $4 billion worth of baloney,” she added — referring to the overdraft fees.

And then, Warren challenged the JPMorgan Chase chief.

“Mr. Dimon, will you commit right now to refund the $1.5 billion dollars you took from consumers during the pandemic?”

“No,” Dimon said flatly.

“That’s right,” Warren said. “Over the past year, you could have passed on the breaks that you got from the Fed to your customers. But you didn’t do it.”

Watch above, via CSPAN.