Top Democrat demands Trump's IRS investigate Epstein bank records in sprawling probe: ‘Follow the money'

Independent

a day ago

The top Democrat on the Senate's powerful finance committee has been investigating the financial network surrounding Jeffrey Epstein for three years.
Now he wants the IRS to find out what, exactly, the late sex offender was doing in exchange for $1.5 billion in wire transfers that passed through major financial institutions.
An investigation, from the office of Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, uncovered more than 4,700 transactions dating to 2003, including payments to women from Russia and eastern European countries.
More than $158 million came from Wall Street financier Leon Black between 2012 and 2017 for Epstein's alleged tax support, according to Wyden's report, and ultimately helped Black avoid more than $1 billion liabilities.
'None of these tax transactions Epstein performed were audited,' Wyden told reporters at a briefing Thursday. 'It could have blown the lid off Epstein's cover of being a financial genius … It looks like none of that ever happened … A bunch of federal officials were sleepwalking through this.'
In a letter to Donald Trump's recently-appointed IRS Commissioner Billy Long, Wyden demanded a list of any and all audits involving Epstein, and whether the agency ever evaluated 'the full scope' of his alleged tax planning services.
'I want the IRS to go back and make sure that there was actually tax advice being given rather than what I suspect was going on, which is a lot of payments revolving around sex trafficking,' Wyden said.
Wyden's financial probe has taken on new urgency in the weeks after the Trump administration failed to release any new revelations from the so-called 'Epstein Files' and concluded no further investigation was needed, much to the uproar of his supporters and Republican allies.
Trump, whose friendship with Epstein spanned more than a decade, has insisted that the public and press should move on from questions about the case. Epstein died by suicide in his jail cell awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019, sparking conspiracy theories that the government is participating in a cover up to protect powerful public figures who exploited and abused young girls.
Trump has repeatedly denied any connection to Epstein's infamous lifestyle, having ended their friendship before the disturbing allegations about the financier emerged in 2006. Earlier this month, the president sued The Wall Street Journal, its publishers and right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch for $10 billion over an article that reported he sent a 'bawdy' birthday card message to Epstein for his 50th birthday. Trump called the report false and defamatory.
Wyden's office uncovered "inexplicably large' sums that were funneled into Epstein's accounts as well as 'suspicious activity reports,' or SARS, which are recorded by banks as a means of detecting signs of illegal activity for federal law enforcement.
Bank of America reported potentially suspicious payments involving Black in February 2020 and October 2020, following Epstein's death, according to Senate investigators.
'We've got paper trails, we've got account numbers, we've got federal files from where it all began with Leon Black,' Wyden told The Independent Wednesday.
The Independent has requested comment from Black and his former asset management firm Apollo Global.
Confidential bank reports, filed with the Treasury Department and IRS, could provide a vital look at the massive financing machine behind Epstein's sex trafficking operation, which spanned New York City, Florida and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Insights have previously been limited to testimony and filings in litigation against him.
The Independent has requested comment from the IRS and Treasury Department.
Filings uncovered by the senator's office include $1.5 billion in transactions through four big banks, including wire transfers from wealthy figures over the sales of artwork, fees paid to Epstein, and payments to several women. But the banks appeared to have waited until Epstein's arrest on federal charges to flag the transactions.
The largest suspicious activity report was filed in 2019 by JPMorgan for $1.1 billion, according to the senator's office.
Other suspicious activity reports include a payment through Deutsche Bank totaling $400 million, $78 million from Bank of New York Mellon and Bank of America's logs on Black's payments to Epstein.
In 2023, JPMorgan paid $290 million to Epstein's victims and Deutsche paid $75 million to settle lawsuits that claimed the banks ignored red flags surrounding trafficking allegations.
The Trump administration and Republican leadership on the Senate Finance Committee have stonewalled Wyden's office, according to the senator, leaving the senator hamstrung by confidentiality laws surrounding transactions. The impasse is why the Oregon senator wants the Trump administration to make the reports available to Congress, which can then subpoena banks for more information, he said.
Wyden's office also laid out steps for the Department of Justice to begin investigating 'hundreds of millions of dollars in wire transfers' that passed through 'several now-sanctioned Russian banks.'
'It appears that these wire transfers were correlated to the movement of women or girls around the world,' Wyden recently wrote to the Justice Department.
He also told the DOJ that it appears to have 'ignored evidence' from the Treasury Department. Trump has said Attorney General Pam Bondi can decide what files connected to the Epstein case could be made public.
'This is not about politics. It is not about red and blue. It is about an evil individual who committed horrific crimes and victimized an enormous number of women and girls,' Wyden told reporters.
'At a time when so many Americans think that the political system is rigged, this is about whether there's going to be accountability for the people who were involved and who enabled it, and the fact that so much money was being spent indicates that this was a global sex trafficking ring,' he added.