Where did Epstein get his money?

A few days ago, as the Jeffrey Epstein scandal gripped Washington, Senator Ron Wyden offered a striking revelation in an interview with The New York Times. The Oregon Democrat said that his investigators had discovered that four big banks had flagged to the Treasury Department $1.5 billion in potentially suspicious money transfers involving Epstein, much of which appeared to be related to his massive sex-trafficking network.

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Wyden’s office just sent a new letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi—which The New Republic obtained—suggesting seven potent lines of inquiry that the Justice Department could follow, right now, to dig more deeply into Epstein’s web of financial relations with global elites.

  New Republic

That went straight to the shredder.

“I am convinced that the DOJ ignored evidence found in the U.S. Treasury Department’s Epstein file, a binder that contains extensive details on the mountains of cash Epstein received from prominent businessmen that Epstein used to finance his criminal network,” Wyden writes in the letter.

The Treasury Department has this information because that’s where banks file suspicious activity reports, or SARS. Wyden’s letter says his staff has documented that Epstein-related filings by banks contain “information on more than 4,725 wire transfers involving Epstein’s accounts, all of which merit further investigation.”

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Wyden’s move here is in some ways a trolling exercise, since DOJ won’t act on it. But such trolling by lawmakers can be constructive if it communicates new information to the public or highlights the failure of others in power to exercise oversight and impose accountability. Wyden’s letter does both.

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Wyden’s investigators know of these records because his office has been examining Epstein’s financial transactions for several years. In February 2024—when Democrats controlled the Senate—Wyden’s staff viewed in camera (that is, privately) thousands of pages of Treasury files documenting those transactions.

Epstein clearly had access to enormous financing to operate his sex trafficking network, and the details on how he got the cash to pay for it are sitting in a Treasury Department filing cabinet.

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Wyden’s letter also lays out other lines of inquiry for DOJ, urging examination of a number of specific payments to Epstein by several wealthy financiers that his investigators discovered.

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In an intriguing move, Wyden also presses DOJ to examine “hundreds of millions of dollars in wire transfers” discovered by his investigators that passed through “several now-sanctioned Russian banks.” The latter adds suggestively: “It appears that these wire transfers were correlated to the movement of women or girls around the world.”

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Right now the White House insists that [Trump] personally favors transparency on the Epstein files but is letting Bondi, DOJ, and the FBI decide how to proceed.

Yah, sure.

The in-camera review by Wyden staffers of Treasury documents in February 2024 itself shows that Wyden sought this info from the Biden administration—and that he got access to it.

What’s more, a Wyden aide tells me that in 2024, soon after Wyden’s staff viewed these Treasury documents in camera, Wyden actively moved to get the Senate to subpoena their release. Because Finance Committee rules require bipartisan support for subpoenas, Wyden sought the backing of several GOP senators on the committee, including now-chairman Mike Crapo and Marsha Blackburn. But none would support a subpoena, the aide says.

Imagine that.

Here's a little background from January 2024...

The first batch of court documents naming numerous figures tied to Jeffrey Epstein was released Wednesday, as part of New York Southern District Judge Loretta Preska's December order unsealing filings in a prior defamation case against Epstein's accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. But word about the banking community's ties with Epstein has been trickling out for more than two years.

Executives at JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and Barclays have faced considerable blowback from federal regulators after the organizations continued to keep Epstein on as a client for years after he was was convicted in 2008 of procuring a child for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute.

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Barclays Chief Executive Officer Jes Staley is stepping down amid a U.K. regulatory probe into how he characterized his past ties to [...] Epstein.

Staley, 64, is leaving immediately.

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Before the announcement, regulators told Barclays the preliminary findings of a two-year investigation into how Staley explained his long-running relationship with Epstein to the bank. "In view of those conclusions, and Mr. Staley's intention to contest them, the board and Mr. Staley have agreed that he will step down from his role as group chief executive and as a director of Barclays," the lender said in a statement. "The board is disappointed at this outcome." The findings have not yet been made public.

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Jeffrey Epstein was accused and convicted of sex trafficking over a period of years. After he was convicted, and despite the bank's knowledge of his chronic and criminal behavior, Epstein became a client at Deutsche Bank. And then, after he became a client, Epstein tripped multiple red flags during his five-year relationship with the bank.

  American Banker

Deutsche Bank was backing Epstein's friend, Donald Trump, too. Those dealings were frought with suspected money laundering deals.

Epstein is referred to in the [July 2020 New York State Department of Financial Services order] as "a wealthy financier with hundreds of millions of dollars in assets and an extensive network of friends and connections that included prominent financial institutions, politicians, royalty, and billionaires."

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The U.S. Virgin Islands is suing JPMorgan Chase for "turning a blind eye" to former client Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking on his private island there.

U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Denise George said her suit filed in late December 2022 in Manhattan federal court was part of an "ongoing effort" to hold accountable those who facilitated Epstein's activities. Epstein brought many of his victims to his villa on Little St. James, the private island he owned.

"Human trafficking was the principal business of the accounts Epstein maintained at JPMorgan," the complaint states.

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According to the suit, JPMorgan concealed "wire and cash transactions that raised suspicion of a criminal enterprise whose currency was the sexual servitude" of women and girls in the Virgin Islands.