For years, investigators had one burning question about Jeffrey Epstein’s wildly far-reaching network of influence: where did all the money come from?
Now, thanks to a new report from Senator Ron Wyden, we might finally have some real answers. Wyden followed the money and found that several “suspicious transactions” were flagged in Epstein’s Deutsche Bank account. The bank failed, however, to disclose this information to the government. Epstein’s JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America accounts saw similar shady activity connected to Epstein’s transactions with disgraced investor Leon Black. Together, the sum total of these flagged transactions exceeds $420 million. Some of these were payments to “women in Russia” and Eastern Europe.
In his 67-page report “Looking the Other Way: How Wall Street Banks Enabled Jeffrey Epstein’s Sex Trafficking.” Wyden calls out both banks for essentially facilitating Epstein’s trafficking crimes by failing to loop in the authorities despite repeated high profile red flag transactions. At the time of these exchanges, these banks were aware of Epstein’s criminal status. They let the money change hands anyway, and kept the authorities in the dark.
“Wall Street banks have been willing to turn a blind eye to the suspicious transactions of ultra-wealthy clients,” Wyden writes, “even if the failure to scrutinize and report these transactions runs directly afoul of federal law.”
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A spokeswoman for Bank of America gave out the usual milquetoast statement, claiming that “we take our legal and regulatory responsibilities seriously and, as we have previously said, the bank did not facilitate wrongdoing.” Leon Black’s lawyers are claiming that the Epstein payments were part of a legitimate business enterprise. Sure, Tony Soprano!
Luckily, Wyden isn’t letting up that easily.
It gets worse. Tr*mp and his team continue to use every tool in their arsenal to cover-up the Epstein scandal, and Wyden’s intel is no exception. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent refused to hand over the treasury’s files concerning Epstein to the Senate. Those same records were made readily available to Republicans in the House Oversight Comittee.
To make things even stickier, CBS EIC Bari Weiss allegedly also assisted in the cover up by failing to air a recently-taped 60 minutes segment with Wyden on this subject. Sharyn Alfonsi, the reporter who filmed Wyden’s segment was fired shortly after.
Wyden has been sounding the alarm about Epstein’s finances for years, and his research is bearing fruit. Unfortunately, under the current administration, nobody wants to hear about it. But Wyden is wise to that, too. Last year, he called BS on Tr*mp’s settled lawsuit with CBS, claiming that the settlement was a form of bribe to get the president to push the Paramount merger through.
That same merger enabled Weiss to take the lead at CBS, leading to Wyden’s segment being scrapped and veteran anchor Scott Pelley’s infamous firing.
Wyden’s report does what any good investigative journalist does: follow the money. In the absence of any actual transparency around the Epstein files, Wyden dug into the financial network that enabled Epstein’s crimes. Unsurprisingly, that network leads directly to D*n*ld Tr*mp’s White House.
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