Senator Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, wrote to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon last week requesting clarification on the bank’s contact with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to a letter published by the committee.
Warren asked Dimon whether he took advice from Epstein while lobbying against a UK tax on banker bonuses, and said “it is critical that Congress and the American public fully understand the extent of any interactions the bank and you had with Epstein.”
The letter, first reported by the Financial Times, follows the release of a cache of documents by the U.S. Department of Justice this year that has renewed scrutiny of Dimon’s ties to Epstein.
A 2009 email that emerged as part of the Epstein files shows Epstein asking former UK Labour minister Peter Mandelson whether Dimon should lobby then-Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling in an attempt to dissuade him from introducing a proposed tax on banker bonuses, according to the Guardian. Mandelson replied that Dimon should “mildly threaten” the chancellor, the email shows.
Dimon subsequently spoke to Darling and pointed out that JPMorgan was a major UK employer and purchaser of government bonds, and threatened to cancel investment in a new London headquarters, according to reports cited in the Guardian.
Mandelson was dismissed as the UK’s ambassador to the United States last September after revelations about his close friendship with Epstein.
Dimon told a court in 2023 that he had never met Epstein and had not heard the late sex offender’s name until his 2019 arrest on federal sex trafficking charges.
Former JPMorgan executive and ex-Barclays CEO Jes Staley has alleged that he communicated with Dimon about the bank’s relationship with Epstein. A spokesperson for JPMorgan said “no such conversation ever occurred” and said a UK tribunal had already called Staley’s testimony “evasive and unreliable.”
The bank has sued Staley, claiming he hid Epstein’s crimes from colleagues to keep him as a client. The parties were subsequently reported to have reached a confidential settlement.
A spokesperson for JPMorgan said “any association with the man was a mistake and we regret it, but we would not have continued doing business with him had we believed he was engaged in ongoing crimes.” The bank said it exited Epstein as a client in 2013, years before his federal sex trafficking arrest, and “years after the government had damning information they kept from us.”
The bank reiterated that Dimon never met Epstein and was not involved in any decisions about his account. The spokesperson said “any suggestion that Dimon spoke with Epstein or took counsel from him was false.”