Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) on Thursday slammed the Trump administration for not making deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s financial records available to Congress and the public.
“Big news from my investigators on Epstein’s sex trafficking operation: the Trump administration has an Epstein file detailing 4,725 wire transfers and almost $1.1 billion flowing through just one of his banks. Hundreds of millions more through others,” Wyden alleged in a post on the social platform X.
“Epstein had to pay for all his sex trafficking somehow. Further evidence shows he used Russian banks to process hundreds of millions in payments. Again, this is info in the possession of the Trump administration, but they’re refusing to investigate,” he added in a later post.
The Hill has contacted the White House for comment.
The Senate Democrat now joins a burgeoning list of lawmakers urging federal investigators to release more documents linked to Epstein’s sex trafficking of underage girls.
“We felt from the beginning this was a follow-the-money case,” Wyden told The New York Times in an article published Thursday.
“This horrific sex-trafficking operation cost Epstein a lot of money, and he had to get that money from somewhere.”
Wyden’s team of staffers reportedly reviewed a paper trail linking Epstein’s large money transfers to individuals and foreign countries through a bank’s suspicious activity reports, or SARs. Files were reviewed by the Times.
The Oregon senator’s three-year-long investigation revealed a SAR on Epstein submitted in 2019 by JPMorgan for $1.1 billion, the Times reported.
The report included a total of 4,700 transactions dating back more than a decade, including payments to women from Belarus, Russia and Turkmenistan.
Wyden’s team found documents showing the next largest was by Deutsche Bank for about $400 million, followed by Bank of New York Mellon for $378 million and then Bank of America.
The reports were filed months after Epstein’s 2019 arrest on federal sex trafficking charges. However, a July memo from the Justice Department and FBI suggested the bulk of information related to Epstein’s crimes has been made available for public review.
But Wyden argues these SARs are the “coin of the realm” when it comes to combating misinformation about the billionaire’s illegal activity.
“When banks are only filing these reports after crooks like Epstein are dead or behind bars, that does not do anyone any good,” Wyden said of the filings, according to the Times.
Some of Epstein’s victims shared the same sentiments.
In 2023, they signed a $290 million settlement with JPMorgan and $75 million with Deutsche Bank after alleging the banks disregarded early signs of potential sex trafficking, according to the Times.
Wyden’s calls for more transparency have been echoed in both chambers through a bipartisan effort.
GOP lawmakers in the House struck down a Democrat-led amendment demanding more information be released. However, House Republicans are considering a measure to disclose more information related to Epstein’s dealings, sources told The Hill.
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