Senator Warren's Amendment Requesting Release of Epstein's Bank Supervision Records Rejected Again

BlockBeats News, May 14th, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren stated during the Senate Banking Committee hearing on the "CLARITY Act" that although the crypto ecosystem has been used to facilitate illegal payments, when the crypto industry was in its early stages, Wall Street banks were willing to provide financial services to Epstein to facilitate his crimes. One might think that after Epstein's 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from minors, major banks would cut ties with him, but the reality was quite the opposite. Over the next decade, major banks such as JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, and Bank of America earned significant fees from Epstein's business while ignoring very clear warning signs. It wasn't until Epstein was arrested again in 2019 that JPMorgan Chase finally disclosed over 4,700 transactions from 1998 to 2013, totaling over a billion dollars, including payments to a Russian bank and young women.

Elizabeth Warren called on the Trump administration's banking regulator to use its authority to investigate the executives who aided Epstein and to provide Congress with years of collected information. She proposed an amendment that would require federal banking regulators to disclose any bank examination records related to Epstein and his co-conspirators, revealing when the banks became aware, whether regulators identified issues that should have triggered warnings, thus helping to prevent Wall Street and corporations from sponsoring the next Epstein.

The amendment was rejected by a vote of 11 in favor to 13 against. The "Cryptocurrency Market Structure Act" (i.e., CLARITY Act) is currently undergoing a line-by-line amendment voting debate.