Warren criticizes Barclays response on Staley-Epstein vetting
A bipartisan group of US lawmakers, led by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Robert Garcia, is introducing the Epstein Wall Street Records Act on Thursday. The bill follows a months-long investigation into Epstein, who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on child sex-trafficking charges.
The legislation, also backed by House Republican Thomas Massie, would force the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate “Epstein connected” financial firms and executives for potential breaches of banking, investment or illicit funding laws. Regulators would gain authority to fine or ban wrongdoers from the US financial sector, force public disclosure of any records relating to Epstein and his associates, and refer potential criminal violations to the US justice department.
Warren framed the legislation as a response to what she characterized as the absence of internal accountability among major banks and at the federal level. “Since the big banks won’t hold themselves accountable – and the Trump administration won’t either – Congress must act to force real transparency and accountability for them and their executives who enabled Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes,” Warren said.
News of the bill came as Warren condemned Barclays, one of the UK’s biggest banks, over its failure to adequately answer questions about its former chief executive and his links to Epstein.
Staley’s ties with the well-connected billionaire spelled the end of his career. The American banker resigned from Barclays in November 2021, after UK regulators started investigating the true nature of his relationship with Epstein, whom he met in 2000 during his three-decade stint at JPMorgan.
The Financial Conduct Authority’s original investigation, triggered by a cache of more than 1,200 emails between Staley and Epstein, concluded that the pair were “indeed close” and had a relationship that “went beyond one that was professional in nature.” Staley was eventually banned from the UK’s financial sector in 2023 for playing down those ties, and failed to overturn that decision in a court battle that revealed intimate details of the pair’s friendship last year.
That court battle included Staley admitting to having sex with a member of Epstein’s staff in New York, an encounter he described as “consensual.” The case also revived a 2010 exchange referring to Disney princesses, in which Staley wrote “That was fun. Say hi to Snow White.” Staley denied knowledge of the exchange during a UK court hearing. After losing the challenge, Staley said he was disappointed by the outcome but maintained he was “never dishonest.”
In July, Warren and a team of House Democrats wrote to the Barclays chair, Nigel Higgins, asking how it had vetted Staley and whether the bank had investigated potential “deficiencies” in its executive hiring process, given that it had “allowed the board to hire a CEO who held extensive professional and personal ties to a convicted sex offender.”
Barclays has since responded with a letter from its head of US government relations, Lance Williams, that Warren said was not sufficient. Williams’s letter focused on the findings of the UK regulators’ investigation. Williams said Staley had “concealed information about his actions and the nature of his relationship with Mr Epstein” and that only after Staley’s resignation had “previously unknown information come to light through various public disclosures.”
“This information paints a fundamentally different picture of Mr Staley than what he presented to Barclays,” Williams said, noting that Barclays had relied on external executive search firms to recruit Staley in 2015, when he was “known for his accomplishments in the banking industry.”
Warren said Barclays’ lacklustre response illustrated why it was time for regulators to launch formal investigations into Wall Street’s ties to Epstein. “Barclays continues to dodge responsibility over its apparent failure to vet its former CEO Jes Staley’s close professional and personal ties to Epstein,” she said.
Barclays declined to comment. Staley’s legal representatives were contacted for comment.