Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) on Thursday urged four of the country’s largest banks to release more financial records related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee sent letters to JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, and Bank of New York Mellon, demanding they release information related to more than $1.5 billion in transactions he believes the banks hold.
Raskin had previously attempted to secure the records through a congressional subpoena but was blocked by House Republicans on the Judiciary Committee.
This week, he expressed concern that the FBI had not sufficiently tracked Epstein’s funding stream in the agency’s investigation of the now-deceased New Yorker. FBI Director Kash Patel “made it clear” during a congressional hearing last month that the agency “failed to follow the money” with regard to transactions related to Epstein that the four banks reported to the Treasury Department, Raskin alleged in letters to the banks.
“These records will also allow us to better understand Director Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi’s outlandish claims that neither the FBI nor the Department of Justice has been able to identify a single additional co-conspirator in Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell’s years-long, multi-billion-dollar international sex trafficking operation,” the Maryland Democrat wrote.
Raskin’s concerns come in the wake of a CBS investigation released Thursday, raising concerns about how the FBI handled its investigation into Epstein’s death, which was ruled by authorities to be a suicide. Among the investigation’s findings were conclusions that “there is no indication in any official report that FBI crime scene investigators, officially known as an Evidence Response Team, ever ran fingerprints or DNA tests on anything found in the cell.”
Nearly two years passed before investigators interviewed the two key corrections officers on duty the night Epstein died in his cell, with one of those officers being the only person to attest to seeing Epstein hanging by a bedsheet from his bunk, according to the investigation, which cited court documents.
“The FBI literally has all of the best tools. I mean, spared no expense. They have every tool you can imagine. And they used none of it as far as we can tell,” forensic analyst Nick Barreiro told investigators. “How are there not way more people pointing out the absurdity of this?”
In 2023, JP Morgan lawyers also raised concerns over the government’s investigation into Epstein, specifically in his financial dealings. Lawyers for the bank said the government failed to follow through when JPMorgan reported to the Treasury Department over $1 billion in transactions related to “human trafficking” by Epstein in 2019.
Felicia Ellsworth, a JPMorgan Chase lawyer, alleged the bank flagged the Treasury Department six times, including as early as 2002, about Epstein’s financial activity, and that the federal government gave no response and took no action.
The House Oversight Committee has called on Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to release further information that could shed light on concerns that Epstein was involved in an international money laundering scheme. Lawmakers want Bessent to release relevant suspicious activity reports, or SARs, that banks are required to file with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network when they suspect a criminal violation, when specified transaction thresholds are reached, or when they suspect money laundering.
“Treasury records shine a light on how high-profile individuals paid Epstein staggering sums of money, which was then used to move women around the world or engage in dubious transactions indicative of money laundering,” Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden (D-OR) said last month.
