Senate Republican Blocks Wyden Bill Mandating Treasury Hand Over Epstein Bank Records

Senate Republican Blocks Wyden Bill Mandating Treasury Hand Over Epstein Bank Records

Watch a video of Senator Wyden's unanimous consent request here

Washington, D.C. - This afternoon on the floor of the U.S. Senate, Republicans blocked a proposal from Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., to pass the Produce Epstein Treasury Records Act, which would compel the Treasury Department to turn over Epstein-related bank records to Congressional investigators. While Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act last year to force the Department of Justice to release the Epstein files in its possession, it made no similar requirement of the Trump administration to disclose the extensive Epstein bank records held at the Treasury Department. The bank records are a road map of Epstein's financial network and activity, and they could help reveal his enablers, co-conspirators, and financial crimes that have gone unprosecuted. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has refused repeatedly to turn the Epstein records over after multiple requests from Senator Wyden in 2025, downplayed their significance, and falsely claimed the Treasury Department has no investigative role in the Epstein matter. Senator Wyden's remarks urging the Senate to pass his bill are below:

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery

Late last week, when I first scheduled this consent request related to Jeffrey Epstein's bank records, I was not expecting it to be set against the backdrop of Trump dragging the U.S. into another war in the Middle East.

I'll address Epstein's horrific crimes and his worldwide financial network in a moment. Right at the outset I need to address the actions of the Trump administration this weekend.

This is a war the American people do not want.

A war that has already cost American lives.

A war the president and his scheming advisors have not even tried to justify.

A war Trump kicked off at his private club minutes before stepping out to celebrate at a glitzy fundraiser, where attendees spent $1 million per plate.

I remember the debate about the Iraq war 20-plus years ago, including the bad faith attacks against those of us who opposed it from the start.

No doubt there will be a replay of that debate. There will be some who say, "war is on," it's time for everybody to line up behind the president, and every other issue's got to go by the wayside.

Wrong.

It's been clear from the beginning that the core principle for this administration is that Trump gets to do whatever he wants, no matter the cost.

It doesn't matter to him how many American soldiers die as a result of his war.

It doesn't matter to him how many people lose their health insurance or their livelihoods as a result of his policies.

And in the case of Epstein, it doesn't matter to him how many pedophiles and sex traffickers continue to walk the streets and prey on the vulnerable while the Trump administration hides key Epstein files from the public.

The position of this administration is that Trump can never be wrong. He gets to do what he wants at all times, and everyone else must obey.

Ultimately, the American people are not going to have it. I won't either.

The last thing I'm going to do is slow down or walk away from my four-year investigation into Epstein's trafficking network because Donald Trump decided to kick off another open-ended war in the Middle East.

Now, I want to take a few minutes to lay out why the Senate must pass my bill demanding the release of the Epstein bank records at the Treasury Department.

Here is what everybody needs to know.

Four years ago, my investigators on the Finance Committee began digging into the so-called tax planning Jeffrey Epstein performed for one of the titans of Wall Street, a man named Leon Black. That relationship spawned sprawling financial ties.

Black had a curious story about their relationship.

Here was a guy worth billions and billions of dollars -- famously a moneymaking machine.

He already employed the best tax and estate planning experts in the country. But over the course of several years, he paid Jeffrey Epstein $170 million for what he claimed was tax and estate planning advice.

Keep in mind that Epstein was not a tax lawyer or an accountant, and the rates Black paid him were astronomical compared to what he was paying the experts he already employed. So my investigators dug in deeper. What we found -- and what's been confirmed in more recent Epstein reports -- is that this story appears to be a sham. Epstein wasn't really doing serious tax and estate work, and Black's lawyers had to keep tabs on the advice he did give, which was often shoddy at best.

Our investigation grew. In late 2023 we reached out to the Biden Treasury Department and sought copies of the bank records it had on Epstein. The Biden Treasury Department wouldn't give us the files, but they allowed Finance Committee investigators to review them in person and take notes. That's how I am aware that there is a massive file of Epstein records at the Treasury Department. These are detailed bank records, a road map of Epstein's financial history. In fact, they are filings made by banks specifically to alert federal law enforcement to suspicious payments -- evidence of possible financial crimes. They're designed to help Treasury investigators and the Justice Department root out crimes like money laundering and trafficking. My investigators reviewed a large portion of them on Valentines Day, 2024. We learned that Epstein made 4,725 wire transfers adding up to more than $1 billion in and out of his JPMorgan bank accounts in the decade after 2003. We learned that he moved hundreds of millions more through accounts at Bank of New York Mellon and Deutsche Bank. We learned that he used Russian correspondent bank accounts to process hundreds of millions in payments associated with trafficking in Russia and in eastern Europe. In the portion of the Epstein bank records Finance Committee investigators saw, there could be more than $1.5 billion in suspicious Epstein transactions laid out for law enforcement to review. It's a staggering amount -- and it's inexplicably high, based on what's currently known about Epstein's sources of income.

These Epstein records are not among the files the Justice Department has released over the last few months. The bill Congress passed requiring the release of the DOJ's Epstein files doesn't affect these records at the Treasury Department at all. And the kicker is, Scott Bessent is hiding these Epstein bank records from Senate investigators. He's refused repeatedly to turn them over and he has refused to let us see what we already know is there. This administration came in with a whole lot of bluster about releasing the Epstein files, so I wanted to give them a chance to make good on their word. I requested the complete set of files from the Treasury multiple times last spring and summer. Both times I received denials in response. Bessent has even gone out in public and downplayed their significance and denied Treasury's got any investigative role with the Epstein files at all. At an appearance last summer, he said the Epstein files were "sitting there" at the Treasury Department and that the Department's job was only to "collect them." He said, quote, "there were no files, per se, just hundreds and thousands of reports" and "our job is simply to collect the reports." Let me be clear on this -- Bessent is lying. A person with his background in finance absolutely knows perfectly well what the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is all about. That's the law enforcement office within the Treasury Department that collects these bank records.

And Bessent hasn't shied away from getting involved in other investigations -- he's got the Treasury Department launching all kinds of efforts to help the Trump administration's deportation campaign in Minnesota, for example. So he wants to have it both ways. When it comes to investigating people and communities the Trump administration considers to be adversaries, Bessent's Treasury Department is aggressive. When it comes to investigating pedophiles with connections to Donald Trump, he's keeping the files locked away.

Let me explain why it's important to break Bessent's hold on these documents. They'd help investigators learn who funded and enabled Epstein. They'd help us see where his payments went. They'd help us identify any connections to organized crime. They'd help us learn more about Epstein's patterns -- for example, how he controlled women and girls by controlling their accounts. They'd help reveal how Epstein's henchmen, including those who still control his estate, assisted in his crimes. That's the kind of information Bessent's stranglehold on these documents is hiding from investigators. We've waited long enough, but a week ago, there was stunning news that prompted my decision to come to the Senate floor with this unanimous consent request today.

CBS News reported on the existence of a mystery Epstein investigation dating back to 2010 -- an investigation the public didn't know about until now. It was spearheaded by the Drug Enforcement Administration, and its targets were Epstein and 14 others. It dealt with drug trafficking and money laundering in New York and the Virgin Islands. The existence of this probe was revealed by a long memorandum prepared by one of the law enforcement agencies involved -- an agency that specialized in breaking up transnational organized crime. Most of the 69-page memorandum is redacted, but the outlines are there. This was a major investigation that began in 2010 and ran at least into 2015.

I'm working on obtaining an unredacted copy of this memorandum from the DEA. There is no reason for the Trump administration to withhold it -- it literally says "unclassified" at the top of every page. I have several other questions about the investigation's conclusion and its findings.

One obvious takeaway is that the Senate cannot allow Scott Bessent to keep the Epstein bank records hidden any longer.

The evidence out in public view is clear -- this wasn't some small-time operation run by Epstein and Maxwell. It's a miscarriage of justice that they're the only two who've faced prosecution in the U.S.

Epstein's network spanned the globe. It involved extraordinarily powerful and wealthy people. It involved serious financial crimes and huge flows of money. And now, based on the revelation of this DEA investigation, it appears it may have involved drugs and drug cartels.

A Treasury Secretary and an administration that was interested in justice would have a team of skilled investigators digging through the Epstein bank records to assist with prosecutions. Instead, Scott Bessent is doing the same thing Pam Bondi and Trump himself are doing: covering up for pedophiles, sex traffickers, and quite possibly drug cartels too.

If they're not going to do any investigating, the Senate ought to step in. That's what my bill is all about. It mandates that the Treasury turn over these Epstein bank records to Senate investigators. We will do the job the Trump administration should have started on day one.

And there is an important, new reason to pass this bill. There is a lot of Epstein-related news breaking nearly every day. I'd wager a lot of banks where Epstein and his network did business are following that news, and they're taking a second look at his transactions. It's entirely possible there are new bank filings coming in today, and they're flagging a new set of suspicious transactions that deserve investigation. Bessent is blocking that investigation from happening.

I want to be clear -- I first sought these documents in 2023, under a Democratic administration. I requested copies of them again in 2024 after my investigators reviewed a portion of them in person at the Treasury Department. I'm still frustrated the Biden administration did not provide them. So, nobody has a right to claim I just came onto this issue out of political convenience.

My investigation will move forward in other directions, too. I continue to believe that some of the biggest banks on Wall Street were among Epstein's biggest enablers. JPMorgan, BNY Mellon, Deutsche Bank and others had opportunity after opportunity to blow the whistle, and they failed. And particularly in the case of JPMorgan, the evidence shows they knew what Epstein was up to and they looked the other way because he brought in mountains of cash. They waited until after he died to flag more than 99 percent of his suspicious payments. By then it was too late to do any good in terms of stopping him. Congress must change the rules around this kind of bank reporting to prevent this horrible situation from ever happening again.

There's a lot more to come from my investigation.

From the beginning I've welcomed participation from both sides, and that still stands.

I strongly hope my colleagues will support my request to pass my bill, the Produce Epstein Treasury Records Act.

There is no excuse for Secretary Bessent to continue blocking our access to the Epstein bank records.

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