Raw America managing editor Carl Gibson sat down Wednesday with U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, for a conversation on his office’s explosive new report detailing how major Wall Street banks — including J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and Deutsche Bank — allegedly enabled Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operation for years. Gibson and Wyden covered:
His new Finance Committee report accusing major banks of anti-money-laundering violations tied to Epstein
How J.P. Morgan executives allegedly coached Epstein on how to move money through various shell companies
A damning internal J.P. Morgan email referencing “nymphettes” at Epstein’s home
Specific dollar figures tied to Epstein’s payments to women in various high-risk countries from one of his J.P. Morgan accounts
The specific Wall Street executives Wyden would subpoena if Democrats retake the Senate
A possible connection between President Donald Trump’s nomination of Supreme Court Justicve Brett Kavanaugh and Deutsche Bank
The DOJ’s withholding of roughly 2 million pages of Epstein-related documents
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s pending confirmation vote and Trump’s IRS audit exemption
Whether Wyden has heard from Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) office
What Democrats hope to accomplish if they retake Congress
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Big Banks Knew Epstein ‘Was Dirty’
Gibson opened by laying out the core argument in the Finance Committee’s report: that Bank of America, Deutsche Bank and J.P. Morgan Chase may have violated federal anti-money laundering laws by failing to screen and report payments — including from billionaire hedge fund manager Leon Black to Epstein — and by underreporting Epstein’s suspicious transactions to the Treasury Department. Wyden didn’t hold back when describing the report’s conclusions.
“Epstein would not have gotten away with sex trafficking for so long if these banks had done their job and followed the law,” Wyden said.
The Finance Committee’s ranking Democrat argued that bank executives “knew that Epstein was dirty, and they just looked the other way,” adding that in his view, it was because “they made money out of it as a result.” He said the report was designed to lay out “a roadmap for prosecution and investigation by federal law enforcement.”
Banks Coaching Epstein on Using Shell Companies
Gibson noted one of the report’s most striking findings was that top J.P. Morgan executives reportedly coached Epstein on how to withdraw his cash through various shell companies instead of through his personal accounts. This helped him obscure the money trail from federal compliance officers and regulators.
Wyden called that particular finding “a showstopper,” but said the real test now is what comes next, and if Congress and the administration has the guts to actually pursue accountability.
“We want to make sure that the regulators, Treasury, the Federal Reserve, DOJ, follow the roadmap and hold these guys responsible,” Wyden said, calling the revelation “a jaw-dropper.”
Bank Executive Commented on ‘Nymphettes’ at Epstein’s House
Gibson brought up one specific document Wyden posted publicly to his Bluesky account: an email from a J.P. Morgan executive comparing the exclusive Union Club to Epstein’s residence, joking that it was “more tasteful” but with “fewer nymphettes.” Gibson asked whether this suggested deeper knowledge inside the bank of what Epstein was doing.
Wyden agreed, and accused J.P. Morgan of trying to “whitewash” its role in Epstein’s network. He argued that “the top executives were up to their eyeballs” in their relationship with the notorious sex trafficker, and observed that some of the people involved — specifically J.P. Morgan asset ands wealth management division CEO Mary Erdoes — “are still there, making big money.”
Banks Looked the Other Way on Epstein’s Suspicious Payments
Gibson walked viewers through some of the specific figures in the report, and chronicled how Epstein made hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to women and girls in countries like Belarus, Lithuania, and Russia in the years leading up to his 2019 prosecution. This includes more than $500,000 in payments in 2011 alone.
Wyden’s report notes that J.P. Morgan neglected to flag those payments to authorities when it could have made a difference. He also said the bank showed a consistent pattern of doing “as little as possible,” and only acting after the fact rather than stopping problems as they emerged.
“They did everything they could to keep from doing steps that would help now,” Wyden said, “and then in the future get clean because they were doing something retroactive.”
Wyden’s Subpoena List if Democrats Retake the Senate
With the 2026 midterms rapidly approaching in less than 100 days, Democrats’ odds of retaking both chambers are steadily improving by the day. Gibson reminded viewers that a Democratic Senate majority would make Wyden chairman of the Finance Committee — with subpoena power.
Gibson ran through several names Wyden has floated for testimony: Mary Erdoes, former Barclays CEO Jes Staley, former J.P. Morgan Chase general counsel Stephen Cutler, and others. When asked what he would ask them if they came before his committee, Wyden kept it simple.
“We want to ask them why they tolerated this for so long,” Wyden said. He argued the executives were supposed to flag exploitation when they saw it, like Epsten “hurting girls and women.” He lamented that the men and women in charge of these institutions had the power to do something but instead “just tried to escape any kind of responsibility.”
A Possible Supreme Court Connection
Gibson asked Wyden about the possibility of one particularly high-profile set of subpoenas for either former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy (a Ronald Reagan appointee) and/or his son, Justin Kennedy, who was an executive at Deutsche Bank between 1997 and 2009.
Gibson laid out the timeline prior to Epstein’s 2019 death in prison: Justice Kennedy’s retired in 2018, paving the way for Donald Trump to nominate Brett Kavanaugh to replace him. He then asked that given how Kennedy’s son worked at Deutsche Bank for more than a decade, whether Wyden would use his subpoena powers to bring Kennedy or his son before the committee to question them over their knowledge of links between Trump and Epstein.
“We’re not ruling anything out at this point,” Wyden said, though he pivoted to a broader frustration. The Oregon senator accused his Republicans colleagues of having “talked a big game” about Epstein, but then said they “weren’t there” when Democrats needed their votes to get subpoenas through.
Revealing the Rest of the Epstein Files
The conversation then turned to how the Justice Department, under Todd Blanche, is still sitting on roughly two million pages of Epstein-related documents that still have yet to see the light of day. This is all in spite of the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act — which Trump signed into law last year — mandating that the DOJ release all files to the public.
Wyden suggested that the files may eventually lead to new information about the decades-old allegations that Epstein was tied to money laundering and drug trafficking dating back to the 1990s. He said his office has been trying to obtain those materials, but has hit a wall despite the records being unclassified.
“[Todd Blanche is] making it impossible for a United States senator who’s been doing a four-year investigation to get something that’s called unclassified,” Wyden said.
Gibson then mentioned the Taking Epstein Survivors Seriously (TESS) database created in part by Colorado-based attorney Anne P. Mitchell to give Americans a window into the enormity of the financial crimes committed by Epstein and others in his network over the decades. He then asked whether Wyden’s staff was aware of the database and whether further financial investigations could follow if Democrats retake not just Congress in 2026, but the DOJ after the 2028 election.
Wyden said the investigation is ongoing and expressed interest in connecting with the database’s creator, and Gibson offered to connect Mitchell to his staff after their conversation.
Wyden on Todd Blanche, the IRS Audit Exemption, Mitch McConnell, and Tariff Refunds
With the Senate preparing to gavel out for the next five weeks, Gibson asked Wyden about whether Blanche is indeed going to be confirmed as attorney general. He noted that Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) has come out in opposition to his confirmation, while Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) voted him out of the Senate Judiciary Committee after he agreed in writing to kill Trump’s slush fund for MAGA loyalists.
Wyden said he was deeply concerned about both the prospect of the slush fund potentially being revived down the road, along with the IRS audit exemption for Trump, his family and his businesses.
“I think the idea that Donald Trump would be the only person in the United States fully exempt from IRS audit is the ultimate indictment of the way they do business,” Wyden said.
Gibson also noted he’s a constituent of Sen. McConnell and asked Wyden that, given Mitch McConnell’s extended absence from the Senate that has now dragged on for more than 50 days, whether the Oregon Democrat had personally heard anything from McConnell’s office about his health or whereabouts.
“I’m not getting any information,” Wyden said. “I’m not probably the first person they’d contact, but I haven’t heard anything about it. Very unusual.”
Gibson closed out the interview by asking what Wyden is hearing from his Oregon constituents heading into recess about what they hope Democrats will do should they retake Congress, and whether there’s any path for consumers to recoup money lost to Trump’s illegal tariffs.
Wyden said tackling the ongoing affordability crisis and the Trump administration’s corruption top the list of concerns he’s hearing. On tariffs, he said Democrats are pushing for accountability, noting that Trump’s own lawyers “said that they would stay with it and get people refunds” in litigation, but that the administration has taken only “some baby steps” toward actually making consumers whole.
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Read the full transcript of Gibson and Senator Wyden’s conversation below:
CARL GIBSON: Welcome to another edition of Raw America Live. We’re very excited today to have Senator Ron Wyden join us here on Raw America this afternoon. Ron is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. He is the senior U.S. senator from Oregon, and his office just released a pretty explosive report about how big Wall Street banks enabled Jeffrey Epstein for years, helped him move millions of dollars. The senator is going to talk all about that report. Senator Wyden, thank you so much for joining us here at Raw America. We appreciate it.
SENATOR RON WYDEN: Hey, thanks for having me on your show. Heard a lot of good things.
CG: Perfect. Always like hearing that. Well, senator, let’s get right into it here. So, I’m seeing here. I read this report, and it was pretty astounding. So, for those of you not familiar, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase likely violated federal anti-money laundering laws by basically failing to help screen and report payments from people like billionaire Leon Black, hedge fund manager, to Jeffrey Epstein, as well as underreporting Epstein’s suspicious transactions to the Treasury Department as required under federal law. Senator, talk about this report and what you hope happens as a result of this.
RW: Well, the most important thing is, is that people understand what this issue is all about. And Epstein would not have gotten away with sex trafficking for so long if these banks had done their job and followed the law. And these bank executives knew that Epstein was dirty, and they just looked the other way, and they did primarily, in my view, because they made money out of it as a result. And what we do in our report is lay out a roadmap for prosecution and investigation by federal law enforcement, and that’s the next step.
CG: I’m seeing here in this report as well several top executives at J.P. Morgan Chase actually coach Jeffrey Epstein on how to withdraw his cash from multiple shell companies rather than from his personal accounts, which, as I understand it, helped him hide information from federal offices, compliance personnel, government regulators. That alone seems like a pretty explosive crime. Do you think that there might be some criminal referrals that could come out of this?
RW: Well, it certainly struck me as a showstopper, but that’s the whole point now: is what happens, you know, next. And we want to make sure that the regulators, Treasury, the Federal Reserve, DOJ, follow the roadmap and hold these guys responsible, but I thought it was a jaw-dropper.
CG: Well, and one thing that’s particularly jaw dropping to me, you include an email from David Brigstocke, who I believe, and you posted this on your Bluesky account. I believe he’s a current or former J.P. Morgan executive. He apparently had knowledge of Epstein’s sex trafficking, or at least tangential knowledge of it. I’m quoting here: “the size of the Union Club. In fact, it used to be a club. Reminded me of J. E’s house, [Jeffrey Epstein’s house], except it was more tasteful and fewer nymphettes.” It seems like they have pretty extensive knowledge of what Epstein was up to. Is that your assessment?
RW: You bet. And J.P. Morgan constantly is trying to do whitewash business and trying to make it look like they were just the absolute epitome of responsibility. But we just think that in so much of what goes on at J.P. Morgan, the top executives were up to their work with Epstein up to their eyeballs, Mary Erdoes and some of these kind of people are still there making big money.
CG: Exactly, and you know, as your as your report shows, so Jeffrey Epstein made millions of dollars in direct payments to various women and young girls from just one of his J.P. Morgan accounts. You wrote on Bluesky: “A lot of these payments were to women in high-risk countries like Belarus, Lithuania, Russia.” It looks like in 2008, he spent $302,000 on these types of payments. 2011, $539,020. 2013, $473,000. At no point, as I understand, did J.P. Morgan flag any of these transactions to these countries. Is that correct?
RW: As far as I can tell, what J.P. Morgan tried to do was little as possible, and then think that everything was fine if they did something retroactive, which was exactly what we were concerned about with these three big big companies is that they were doing everything they can to stop. They they did everything they could to keep from doing steps that would help now and and then in the future get get clean because they were doing something retroactive.
CG: Now, Senator, you mentioned, and I think this is very important as we head into the midterms. Less than 100 days to go before voters head to the polls. It looks like Democrats have a good chance of retaking the House of Representatives. Democrats’ chances of retaking the Senate are also on the rise. If Democrats retake the Senate, you would be chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and would have subpoena power. You’ve named several Wall Street executives you would like to bring forward to the committee and subpoena. I’m going to name several of those: Paul Morris, Mary Erdoes, who you mentioned earlier, Jess Staley, Stephen Cutler. Who are some of these other names? And talk about what you’d like to ask them if you had the power to subpoena them and bring them to your committee?
RW: Well, we we want to ask them why they tolerated this for so long. I mean, they are supposed to have a kind of good government approach when they see these kinds of things that are taking advantage of people hurting girls and women. They’re supposed to step up, bring it to the attention of government. Why did they do none of that, and instead just tried to escape any kind of responsibility?
CG: You know, Senator, one question that I had when seeing this was, you know, people may not be familiar with the timeline. 2019, Jeffrey Epstein died in prison. 2018, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy resigned from the Supreme Court, retired, and Trump was able to appoint his replacement, Brett Kavanaugh. Now, Justice Kennedy’s son used to work at Deutsche Bank for about a decade, and I’m wondering, senator, if you’re able to chair the Finance Committee come 2027, would you be willing to issue a subpoena to Justice Kennedy or his son and ask if they had any connections to or knowledge of Trump and Epstein?
RW: Well, we’re we’re not ruling anything out at this point, but one of the things that was particularly disturbing is that the Republicans in the Senate talked a big game, talked about how serious they were about dealing with Epstein, and then when we tried to get them to help with the subpoena, they weren’t there.
CG: Yeah, because, like you said nothing is off the table, and that’s interesting to know because you know I think this thing potentially goes a lot deeper. I know Todd Blanch and the DOJ are currently sitting on at least two million pages of Epstein-related documents that we have yet to see and that have not been released. So I’m wondering, you know—
RW: —You know, the significance of that is that there were, back in the ‘90s, all kinds of implications that Epstein was involved in money laundering and drugs and the like, and we have been trying to get those materials from Blanche, and they’re on a document that says unclassified. So he’s making it impossible for a United States senator who’s been doing a four-year investigation to get something that’s called unclassified.
CG: Well, and Senator, you know, previously a couple months ago, we had an attorney, Anne Mitchell, come on this program, and she talked about a database she created called TESS, [Taking Epstein Survivors Seriously]. She created this database to basically search through the Epstein files to allow people to have a window into the various financial crimes that Epstein had committed. Like you said, dating back decades. I wanted to ask if your staff was a aware of that database, and if you foresee additional financial investigations into the Epstein network, not only should Democrats retake Congress in November, but should they retake control of the DOJ after 2028?
RW: Well, first of all, we are continuing our investigations. We point that out in the report, and I’d very much like to be able to be in touch with this person who’s running this database.
CG: And I can connect her to your staff as well. It’s pretty explosive. I’ve I’ve gotten to look at it for a while. I wanted to ask, senator, as we’re talking about Epstein — and of course Todd Blanche’s is potentially going to be confirmed by the Senate pretty soon, I know you guys are trying to leave for August recess pretty shortly — how do you feel about Todd Blanche’s chances of being confirmed by the full Senate? I know Susan Collins came out against his confirmation, but of course Thom Tillis and John Cornyn passed him out of the Judiciary Committee. Do you feel Todd Blanche could be fully confirmed this week as attorney general?
RW: I’m concerned about it, and as the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, I’ve led the fight to get rid of this special audit exemption. I think the idea that Donald Trump would be the only person in the United States fully exempt from IRS audit is the ultimate indictment of the way they do business.
CG: And like, walk us through this, Senator, because as I understand, John Cornyn and Thom Tillis were satisfied with him putting in writing the slush fund is dead. But like you mentioned, that IRS audit protection that’s still in place, and I don’t really see anything in that document that says Trump can’t just bring back the slush fund at some point. I mean, is that a concern?
RW: I agree completely. It’s a top concern.
CG: And obviously with Mitch McConnell being absent from the Senate for a long period of time, I know that’s one less Republican vote. I’m wondering, senator, since I have you here, have you heard anything from Mitch McConnell’s office or staff about his whereabouts, his health? I’m one of his constituents here in Kentucky, and I have yet to hear anything about my senator.
RW: I’m not getting any information. I’m not probably the first person they’d contact, but I haven’t heard anything about it. Very unusual.
CG: And of course, real quick before August recess happens, you’re about to go back and talk to your constituents. What are you hearing from your constituents about things that they are hoping Democrats will do should they retake the majority? I know obviously Epstein investigations are a big one, but what are some things that you hope Democrats can accomplish should they regain a majority in November?
RW: I think the two things they really care about are costs and corruption. You know, around their kitchen table, they’re getting clobbered. I’m fighting Trump on these tariffs, and Democrats have always said we’re concerned about affordability. They’re letting him get all these extra tariffs. I think that’s a big mistake.
CG: Greg Casar, chairman of the House Progressive Caucus, he recently said that Americans should be the ones getting the refunds from the tariffs. I was seeing a CBO study that—
RW: —That’s way too logical for this administration.
CG: Exactly! You know, a lot of people have they paid so many higher prices because of these tariffs. These corporations are reaping the rewards. Like, is there any recourse for consumers like us to get some of this money back that we paid in higher prices?
RW: We’re pushing very hard, and I’m in particular pointing out that Trump’s lawyers in his litigation before the court said that they would stay with it and get people refunds, and he sure hasn’t done much. He’s done some baby steps, but not much. I’m being told I got to run to the next thing, but does that give you enough to start with?
CG: Absolutely, Senator. Thank you for taking the time. We really appreciate you coming on.
RW: Let’s do it again. I’d like to do it again.
CG: Absolutely, Senator. I would too.
RW: All right. Big thanks.
