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bank of america
Raskin Demands Bank Records in Probe of $1.5 Billion in 'Suspicious' Transactions Tied to Epstein
"Will your bank choose to be part of the cover-up for this massive, international sex trafficking ring that victimized more than 1,000 women and girls?"
Oct 09, 2025
US House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin on Wednesday sent letters to four major banks demanding records related to more than $1.5 billion in "suspicious" financial transactions tied to Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking ring.
"Can Bank of America help Congress understand how Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and their co-conspirators were able to use your bank and others to conduct more than $1.5 billion in suspicious financial transactions to operate their international sex trafficking ring for years without ever being caught?" Raskin (D-Md.) wrote to the bank's CEO, Brian Moynihan.
The congressman began his letters to Bank of New York Mellon CEO Robin Vince, Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing, and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon the same way.
Epstein, a financier and convicted sex offender, was found dead in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while facing federal charges for sex trafficking. His death was ruled a suicide, but that has been met with deep skepticism. Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year federal sentence for her related crimes.
The US Department of Justice has refused to release all of its files on Epstein, heightening public, media, and congressional attention on his friendship with President Donald Trump in the 1990s until their alleged falling out in the early 2000s.
"In September, at a hearing with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Kash Patel, it became clear that the FBI has failed to 'follow the money' with regard to more than $1.5 billion in suspicious transactions related to Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking ring," Raskin wrote Wednesday.
"In light of this startling information, House Judiciary Committee Democrats moved to subpoena financial records related to Jeffrey Epstein from these four banks, but Republicans, with the exception of Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), blocked these efforts," he explained, urging the institutions to willingly work with the panel.
"For over 15 years, JPMorgan turned a blind eye to evidence of Jeffrey Epstein's child sex trafficking."
Under the Bank Secrecy Act, institutions must implement anti-money laundering policies, which include requiring compliance officers, often in consultation with executives, to file a suspicious activity report (SAR) within 60 days of noticing an activity that raises a red flag, "so federal authorities can be alerted to the potential criminal activity and investigate," the letters stress.
"Despite the public nature of Mr. Epstein's crimes, and the hundreds of millions of his funds flowing through your bank, it appears Bank of America filed only two significantly delayed SARs relating to his conduct—covering $170 million in transactions between Mr. Epstein and billionaire investor Leon Black," Raskin wrote to Moynihan.
The letter to Vince says that "while reports indicate that you filed SARs covering $378 million in payments to and from Mr. Epstein's accounts, these SARs were reportedly filed years after Mr. Epstein's death, well beyond when was statutorily required and when the opportunity to intervene and prevent his conduct had passed."
Raskin's letter to Dimon is particularly scathing, stating: "For over 15 years, JPMorgan turned a blind eye to evidence of Jeffrey Epstein's child sex trafficking. Senior executives at your bank helped Mr. Epstein open 134 accounts and processed over $1 billion in transactions for Mr. Epstein, including after his 2008 conviction for soliciting minors."
"Mr. Epstein had an extensive pattern of suspicious transactions with JPMorgan, including a $175,000 cash withdrawal in 2003 that was used to pay child victims, a series of enormous cash withdrawals totaling more than $1.7 million in 2004 and 2005, and a slew of requests for credit cards and bank accounts for teenagers and young women," he detailed.
Raskin continued:
Despite the flagrant nature of Mr. Epstein’s activities, JPMorgan did not file a single SAR during that time It was only after Mr. Epstein's death that JPMorgan retroactively conducted a review of Mr. Epstein's transactions and filed its first SARs, covering a staggering 4,700 transactions totaling $1.1 billion. Many of these SARs were filed over a decade later than statutorily required.
Documents further show that Mr. Epstein repeatedly communicated with the chief executive of the investment bank at JPMorgan, who alerted Mr. Epstein to the bank's sensitivity about his constant cash withdrawals, and offered him the opportunity to alter his tactics to avoid detection. The JPMorgan executive also repeatedly intervened to ensure that JPMorgan's compliance functions would not interfere with Mr. Epstein's activities. Even more disturbing, in 2010, after Mr. Epstein pleaded guilty to engaging in sex with a minor, the same JPMorgan executive visited Mr. Epstein's properties in New Mexico, New York, and the Caribbean.
In his letter to Sewing, Raskin pointed out that "in 2013, Mr. Epstein moved his financial accounts from JPMorgan to Deutsche Bank."
"Despite news reports indicating Mr. Epstein's serious crimes, Deutsche Bank appeared focused on the potential profitability of its relationship," he wrote. "Deutsche Bank memos advocating opening an account for Mr. Epstein emphasized how lucrative his business would be."
The congressman accused Deutsche Bank of failing to report a "stream of red flags," called out compliance officers for accepting Epstein and his lawyers' "farfetched answers that these transfers were for 'tuition' or 'rent' for Mr. Epstein's 'friends,'" and noted that his attorney "made 100 cash withdrawals totaling over $800,000 in four years, often in amounts just below the $10,000 federal reporting threshold."
"So, Mr. Sewing, we ask: Is Deutsche Bank willing to put its past behind it and help reveal the truth about Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and their co-conspirators? Or will your bank choose to be part of the cover-up for this massive, international sex trafficking ring that victimized more than 1,000 women and girls?" he inquired, asking the same questions of the other CEOs.
Raskin also provided each bank with a list of specific requests for documents and information to send to the panel by October 22.
JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank have each paid hundreds of millions of dollars for claims related to Epstein. Asked about Raskin's letter, Deutsche Bank said in a statement to CNBC that it "takes its legal obligations seriously, including appropriately responding to authorized investigations and proceedings."
Bank of America and BNY Mellon did not respond to CNBC's requests for comment, while JPMorgan declined to comment.
The letters come as the federal government is shut down and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has held off on swearing in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the key 218th signature on a discharge petition to force a vote on legislation that would require the Justice Department to release the Epstein files. Johnson claimed earlier this week that her position on the matter was not the reason for the delay, but many Democrats in Congress and other critics are not buying that.
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Banking on Climate Chaos Report Shows 'Tremendous' Financing Surge
"The time for climate justice is now, and that means ending fossil fuel investment at its source and holding banks and financial institutions accountable," said one Native American environmental activist.
Jun 17, 2025
The 16th annual Banking on Climate Chaos report, which was released Tuesday, found that dozens of the world's biggest banks committed $869 billion to firms engaged in fossil fuels in 2024—a "tremendous" increase from the overall fossil fuel financing that was recorded the year prior, according to the authors of the study.
The report comes a few months after the World Meteorological Organization announced a new milestone in the climate crisis: Not only was 2024 the warmest year in a 175-year observational period, reaching a global surface temperature of roughly 1.55°C above the preindustrial average for the first time, but each of the past 10 years was also individually the 10 warmest on record.
The new report analyzed the globe's 65 largest banks by assets according to S&P Global's annual rankings and was authored by several climate-focused groups, including Rainforest Action Network (RAN), Sierra Club, Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), and others.
The report has been endorsed by hundreds of organizations in dozens of countries, according to a statement from RAN, and all banks in the report were given the opportunity to review the financing attributed to them prior to the report's release.
Big picture, the report shows that Wall Street investment banks and other financial institutions are "complicit in the climate crisis," according to Tom BK Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network and study co-author.
"The time for climate justice is now, and that means ending fossil fuel investment at its source and holding banks and financial institutions accountable," Goldtooth added.
The bank financing compiled in the report includes things such as the role banks play in facilitating bond issuances or their lending of money, according to the methodology section. Banks play a crucial role in enabling fossil fuel production because, as senior research strategist at RAN Caleb Schwarz explained, fossil fuel companies are quite rich but they don't have enough capital to finance their projects solely on their own.
Fossil fuel financing had been in on the decline between 2021 and 2023, dropping by $215 billion during that time period to $707 billion—meaning the rise in 2024 is a turnaround of over $162 billion.
"This growth in fossil fuel finance is troubling because new fossil fuel infrastructure locks in more decades of fossil fuel dependence," according to the report. "While various macroeconomic and political factors likely influenced specific decisions, at the end of the day, what matters is the outcome: Banks poured even more money into the expansion of the fossil fuel industry, despite the clear societal need for them to do the opposite."
Other topline findings include that the 65 banks featured in the report have committed $7.9 trillion in fossil fuel financing since 2016, and over two-thirds of the banks upped their fossil fuel financing between 2023 and 2024.
The world's biggest offender when it comes to fossil fuel financing in 2024 was JPMorgan Chase, which tallied $53.5 billion in fossil fuel financing, per the report. Bank of America came in second place.
"This should be a wake-up call to national governments and regional supervisory bodies that they need to step in," said Allison Fajans-Turner, bank engagement and policy lead at RAN and one of the co-authors of the report, on Tuesday. "Banks are not policing themselves. Regulators need to set rules to manage the financial risk that banks are putting into the system."
The authors of the report lay out several demands for banks, including that they drop all finance for fossil fuel expansion, adopt "binding and mandatory emissions reduction targets for upstream, midstream, and downstream fossil fuels," and increase financing for a "just transition," among others.
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Morgan Stanley Latest Wall Street Giant to Ditch Net-Zero Coalition
Earlier this week, Bank of America and Citigroup also said they were leaving the Net-Zero Banking Alliance.
Jan 02, 2025
On Thursday, the Wall Street titan Morgan Stanley became the latest financial institution to leave the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, a United Nations-convened group of banks committed to "aligning their lending, investment, and capital markets activities with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050."
The defections keep piling up. Earlier this week, Bank of America and Citigroup said they were leaving the alliance, and earlier in December Goldman Sachs Group and Wells Fargo announced they were doing the same.
“We will continue to report on our progress as we work towards our 2030 interim financed-emissions targets,” Morgan Stanley told Bloomberg in an email.
While Morgan Stanley didn't offer an explanation for the exit, according to Reuters, financial firms have repeatedly found themselves in the crosshairs of some members of the GOP who argue that corporate efforts to limit fossil fuels run afoul of antitrust law.
Last summer, the Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee published a report accusing financial institutions colluding to impose "radical environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals on American companies." Their probe was largely focused on another climate group, Climate Action 100+, which is made up of financial institutions who strive to engage companies they invest in on climate issues. That coalition has also experienced a number of defections.
In December, 11 GOP-led states sued three asset managers in federal court, arguing that the firms had "artificially constrained the supply of coal, significantly diminished competition in the markets for coal, increased energy prices for American consumers, and produced cartel-level profits" for the firms in violation of antitrust law.
Despite the stated goals of the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, Morgan Stanley and other firms who are a part of the alliance have remained a major financial life lines for fossil fuel companies.
According to a report published by a group of NGOs in 2023, 56 of the largest banks in the Net-Zero Banking Alliance—including Morgan Stanley—have provided nearly $270 billion in the form of loans and underwriting to more than 100 "major fossil fuel expanders," from Saudi Aramco to ExxonMobil to Shell.
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