JPMorgan Chase pushed back Friday after President Donald Trump announced he asked the Department of Justice to investigate the bank — along with other institutions and individuals — over their ties to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
JPMorgan Chase spokeswoman Patricia Wexler said in a statement that federal authorities possessed "damning information" about Epstein that was never shared with the bank.
JPMorgan Chase maintained a client relationship with Epstein from the late 1990s to 2013, processed over $1 billion in his transactions, ignored repeated internal red flags, and later settled lawsuits for hundreds of millions.
The bank maintains that it notified federal authorities of tens of millions of dollars in potentially suspicious Epstein-related transactions involving prominent Wall Street and business figures just weeks after his 2019 death.
In a statement issued Friday, Wexler said the bank "ended our relationship with him years before his arrest on sex trafficking charges."
She added, "The government had damning information about his crimes and failed to share it with us or other banks. We regret any association we had with the man, but did not help him commit his heinous acts."
In a post to Truth Social earlier Friday, Trump wrote that he was asking Attorney General Pam Bondi "to investigate Jeffrey Epstein's involvement and relationship with [former President] Bill Clinton, [former Harvard President] Larry Summers, [LinkedIn co-founder] Reid Hoffman, [JPMorgan Chase], and many other people and institutions, to determine what was going on with them, and him."
JPMorgan Chase paid $290 million in 2023 to settle a class action suit from Epstein's survivors, who alleged the bank ignored suspicious cash activity that enabled his sex trafficking operation. It also paid $75 million to resolve claims brought by the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The bank admitted no wrongdoing in either settlement.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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