House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) is stepping up his scrutiny of deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s financial entanglements.
Comer subpoenaed banks JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank on Tuesday, compelling them to turn over Epstein’s financial records from when he was a client of each of those financial institutions. The subpoenas are the latest step in the House Oversight Committee’s wide-ranging investigation of the sexual abuse perpetrated by Epstein and his partner, convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.
“The records sought by this subpoena will assist in the Committee’s oversight of the federal government’s enforcement of sex trafficking laws generally and specifically its handling of the investigation and prosecution of Mr. Jeffrey Epstein and Ms. Ghislaine Maxwell,” Comer wrote to the banks in separate subpoena letters.
Moreover, Comer requested that U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Gordon Rhea (D.) turn over documents related to Epstein’s activities in the territory dating back to 1998. Epstein had two islands in the territory and maintained connections to prominent political officials from the U.S. Virgin Islands, including House Delegate Stacey Plaskett (D.).
Epstein was a client of JPMorgan Chase for almost two decades until 2013. He was subsequently a Deutsche Bank client until late 2018. Former JPMorgan Chase executive Jes Staley, a longtime friend of Epstein’s, left the bank the same year it dropped Epstein as a client.
JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank both agreed to substantial settlements with Epstein’s victims in 2023 to settle lawsuits accusing them of enabling Epstein’s sex trafficking.
Comer previously requested that the Treasury Department turn over suspicious activity reports related to Epstein’s and Maxwell’s financial transactions. The Oversight Committee said the Treasury Department is cooperating with the panel’s request. In 2019, JP Morgan Chase conducted an internal investigation called “Project Jeep” and flagged over 4,000 Epstein transactions as suspicious in a report sent to federal regulators.
Senator Ron Wyden (D., Ore.), who has spent years following the Epstein money trail, has accused the Treasury Department of failing to hand over all the documents in its possession connected to Epstein and numerous financial entities. In October, Wyden accused JPMorgan Chase of not fully cooperating with his investigation by falsely pinning all the blame on Staley for Epstein’s financial relationship with the bank.
Epstein became a convicted sex offender in 2008 when he was nabbed on state-level sex-crimes charges in Florida. He infamously avoided federal charges at the time by signing a non-prosecution agreement with prosecutors. The lead federal prosecutor in South Florida when the agreement was signed, Alexander Acosta, told the House Oversight Committee that he believed the lack of victim cooperation could have derailed a federal prosecution of Epstein. After a brief jail stint, Epstein relocated to the U.S. Virgin Islands and continued his sex-trafficking operation.
Epstein died in August 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges in Manhattan. His death was ruled a suicide, a conclusion the Trump administration affirmed when it decided earlier this year not to release the government’s Epstein files. The administration’s handling of the Epstein files has brought renewed interest in Epstein’s behavior and what the government knew about it.
The House and Senate each passed on Tuesday a bipartisan measure compelling the Trump administration to release the Epstein files. It flew through both chambers easily after President Trump gave House Republicans permission Sunday to support it.
Democrats have spent months hammering Trump on his friendship with Epstein, a relationship that lasted through the 1990s until the mid-2000s. Those attacks have helped turn the Epstein files into a political nightmare for Trump, who promised last year to release them if elected to another term.
Trump has never been accused of wrongdoing during his association with Epstein. He has called the Epstein files a Democratic “hoax” and likened them to false claims of collusion between his 2016 campaign and Russia.
The Oversight Committee released 20,000 emails last week shining more light on Epstein’s relationships with powerful officials in politics, business, media, and academia. House Democrats pre-empted the release by disclosing three emails they claimed implicated Trump in Epstein’s activities. In a 2019 email to anti-Trump author Michael Wolff, Epstein said Trump “knew about the girls” and told Maxwell to “stop.” Another email from 2011 featured Epstein’s assertion that Trump “spent hours at my house” with a victim whose name was redacted.
The victim in question was prominent Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre, who previously said Trump did nothing wrong during his friendship with Epstein. Giuffre committed suicide earlier this year after spending most of her adult life speaking out against Epstein and Maxwell. Republicans pointed to Giuffre’s past comments to accuse Democrats of cherry-picking from the email cache to mount partisan attacks.
To date, the Oversight Committee has released 65,000 pages worth of Epstein documents. The documents have come from the Justice Department and Epstein’s estate. They also include transcripts from the panel’s ongoing investigation. Epstein’s estate has provided lawmakers with information about Epstein’s bank accounts as part of its work with the Oversight Committee.
Last week, Trump ordered the Justice Department to investigate prominent Democrats who were affiliated with Epstein. Trump focused his attention on former President Bill Clinton, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and billionaire Democratic donor Reid Hoffman. Attorney General Pam Bondi asked Manhattan federal prosecutor Jay Clayton to oversee the Epstein investigation, which Hoffman and a spokesman for Clinton have dismissed.
Summers was featured heavily in the batch of emails because he communicated regularly with Epstein about personal and political manners. With scrutiny mounting, Summers apologized and said he will be stepping back from his public commitments.