Support our truly independent journalism. Jamie Dimon Has Some Explaining to Do About Epstein JPMorgan’s CEO is blaming a single former executive for the bank’s Epstein relationship. The facts don’t support that story. Zev Shalev Oct 21 ∙ JPMorgan Chase processed $1.1 billion through Jeffrey Epstein’s accounts. Wire transfers to Russian banks. Payments to women in Belarus, Turkmenistan, and Turkey. Cash withdrawals of $300,000 at a time. The bank’s own compliance officers screamed warnings for years. The general counsel wrote that Epstein “should not be a client.” Anti-money laundering specialists flagged transaction after transaction. And now, after Senator Ron Wyden demanded answers, JPMorgan Chase has offered America a scapegoat: one former executive, Jes Staley. The bank wants you to believe that a single employee—however senior—orchestrated the entire relationship with a sex trafficker whose criminal enterprise moved more than a billion dollars through their systems over fifteen years. It’s an insult to basic intelligence. Consider the timeline Wyden laid out. In 2006, Mary Callahan Erdoes, CEO of JPMorgan’s wealth management division, learned about Epstein’s suspicious cash withdrawals and sex crime charges. She kept him as a client. In 2011, after compliance officers and the bank’s general counsel explicitly warned her that Epstein showed signs of money laundering and human trafficking, she still took no action. That same year, she personally delivered a $9 million settlement check to Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse. Two years later, in 2013, Erdoes finally confronted Epstein about his cash transactions. JPMorgan terminated him as a client. Then the bank sat on that decision for six years before filing a single suspicious activity report with federal regulators. READ: Senator Wyden's Letter to Jamie Di... 251KB ∙ PDF file Download Six years Federal law requires banks to flag suspicious transactions immediately—within 30 to 60 days. JPMorgan waited until 2019, after Epstein’s arrest made headlines, to file reports on 4,725 transactions totaling $1.1 billion. Those reports detailed payments that facilitated sex trafficking across international borders, including hundreds of millions processed through correspondent accounts at Russian banks that are now under U.S. sanctions. The bank claims it didn’t know. The documents say otherwise. Internal emails show decisions about Epstein marked “pending Dimon review”—referring to CEO Jamie Dimon, who testified under oath that he never knew Epstein was a client until 2019. Yet his general counsel was reviewing Epstein materials “for Jamie” back in 2008. Wyden isn’t having it. His second letter to Dimon, released last week, demands the internal communications, the “Project Jeep” review JPMorgan conducted after Epstein’s second arrest, and every document related to why the bank waited six years to report transactions it knew were suspicious in 2013. The senator’s investigation reveals another thread. Both Epstein and Trump were JPMorgan clients during the same period. Trump himself claims he banked with JPMorgan for 40 years—meaning he was there throughout Epstein’s entire 15-year relationship with the bank, from 1998 to 2013. The same institution processing $1.1 billion for a sex trafficker was simultaneously managing accounts for the future president. When JPMorgan finally cut ties with Epstein in 2013, he landed at the same institution already managing Trump’s wealth. Trump had entered Deutsche Bank’s Private Wealth Management division in 2011 through Kushner connections. Two years later, on August 19, 2013, Jeffrey Epstein opened his Deutsche Bank accounts—entering the same division, under the same banker, Rosemary Vrablic, who was already managing Trump. The date itself carries historical weight—August 19 marks the anniversary of the failed 1991 Russian coup attempt. Both men, rejected by mainstream banks, now operated through the same high-risk private wealth management operation under the same executives. Deutsche Bank, with its notorious appetite for “damaged clients” and spectacularly weak compliance controls, processed another $400 million in Epstein transactions before regulators forced a reckoning. From August 2013 forward, both accounts ran parallel—same institution, same division, same management team systematically overriding compliance warnings for both clients. Now Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent sits on the full Epstein file. Wyden’s investigators found it earlier this year—thousands of bank records documenting the financial architecture of a sex trafficking operation that spanned continents. The Trump administration won’t release it. Won’t even confirm the dates of JPMorgan’s suspicious activity reports. JP Morgan's response to Wyden's original... 271KB ∙ PDF file Download Trump Regime is Burying Crucial Documents Perhaps the reason we’re not getting these Treasury records is what they might reveal. Epstein’s story isn’t just about one predator’s crimes—it’s the origin story of the corruption that has infiltrated our institutions. The same banks, the same powerful clients, the same willingness to look away when enough money is at stake. The financial records don’t just show how Epstein operated. They show who enabled him, who profited alongside him, and which systems were built to protect wealth over justice. This isn’t about one rogue banker. This is about a system where the largest financial institutions in America weigh reputational risk against profit and choose profit. Where compliance warnings get overridden because a client is “treasured.” Where banks can enable criminal enterprises for years, file reports only after arrests force their hand, pay settlements to avoid prosecution, and face no criminal consequences. JPMorgan paid $290 million to Epstein’s victims in 2023. Deutsche Bank paid $75 million. No executives lost their jobs. No one went to jail. The Justice Department under Trump’s watch shows no interest in investigating whether these banks violated federal anti-money laundering laws. Wyden gave JPMorgan until October 31 to produce documents. The bank will almost certainly refuse, citing confidentiality rules designed to protect financial institutions from scrutiny. Meanwhile, the Treasury Secretary who could override those objections—who could demand a full criminal investigation into banks that may have knowingly processed payments for sex trafficking—stays silent. The math here is simple. Epstein couldn’t have operated his criminal enterprise without unfettered access to the global financial system. JPMorgan gave him that access. Deutsche Bank kept it going. Both banks knew. Both chose profit. And now the administration of a former Deutsche Bank client is blocking congressional investigators from following the money. One executive didn’t do this. A system did. And that system is still operating exactly as designed. To defeat the endemic corruption gripping our public and business lives, we must return to an era of accountability. The fact that these executives run free while survivors still struggle with trauma is an inversion of justice we must get right. Banks that knowingly process payments for sex trafficking should face criminal prosecution. Executives who override compliance warnings to protect billion-dollar clients should lose more than their jobs—they should face the same legal system their actions helped a predator evade. Until then, every settlement check is just another line item. Every non-prosecution agreement another permission slip. The survivors paid the price. The banks paid their way out. And the system that made it all possible remains untouched, waiting for the next client wealthy enough to be worth the risk.