Former JP Morgan banker allegedly pushed to keep Epstein as client
by Lisa Hornung · UPIJuly 23 (UPI) -- Former JP Morgan Chase investment banking boss Jes Staley pushed the bank to keep Jeffrey Epstein as a client despite red flags surrounding the late sex offender, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., said Thursday.
"It appears that within JPMorgan there were flags -- red flags -- about Epstein, but Mr. Staley is on record defending Epstein and encouraging JPMorgan to keep him as a client," Comer told CNBC outside Staley's closed-door testimony before the committee. "So we have a lot of questions about that."
Staley was Epstein's private banker at JP Morgan and stayed friends with him for years.
"If it weren't for banks and bankers like Jes Staley, then Jeffrey Epstein would not have been able to continue to commit these crimes against women," Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va., said in a press conference Thursday.
"He would not have continued to do some of the things that he did. But it was because of these banks that he was able to do so."
More than 1,200 emails between Staley and Epstein appear in the files released by the Department of Justice last year. Some include Staley describing their friendship as "profound" and calling Epstein "family."
"We have email documentation that in 2010 he was requesting and interacting with Jeffrey Epstein to procure women that he had sexual encounters with, and when he was asked in [the committee hearing] what happened and to describe those encounters, he could not recall," Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., said in a press conference.
Staley became CEO of Barclays in 2015 but resigned in 2021. He was banned from the British financial industry for misleading regulators about his friendship with Epstein.
Britain's Financial Conduct Authority conducted the investigation, and Staley appealed the ban in court, which meant a public hearing, The Guardian reported.
Staley admitted to having sex with an Epstein staff member in New York, but said that he would describe the encounter as "consensual."
The judges agreed with the FCA. Staley also lost $24 million of pay and bonuses from Barclays as a result of the ruling.
Staley said in 2020, "Obviously I thought I knew him well, and I didn't," and "with hindsight of what we all know now, I deeply regret having had any relationship with Jeffrey Epstein."
JPMorgan agreed in 2023 to pay $290 million to settle with Epstein's victims and $75 million to resolve a separate case brought by the U.S. Virgin Islands. The bank later reached a confidential settlement with Staley.
Democrats on the committee said that JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon's name didn't come up in the testimony.