The Justice Department’s recent conclusion that “no further disclosure” of information related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein “would be appropriate or warranted” has raised some hackles among supporters of President Donald Trump, whose administration pledged to make the files public.
One Senate Democrat, Ron Wyden of Oregon, has been pointing to specific avenues of inquiry that, if followed, could shine more light on how Epstein was able to get away with sexually abusing hundreds of young women and girls for so long.
An aide to Wyden told HuffPost the senator believes it is “absolutely ridiculous” that Attorney General Pam Bondi and others now say there is nothing left to be made public.
The senator himself told NOTUS, a digital news outlet, that he not only gave the Trump administration “a ready-made Epstein file,” but that he knows “for a fact that the Trump administration is sitting on an Epstein file that contains new actionable information, and they’ve done nothing with that, either.”
In an unsigned memo, the Justice Department stated that it had no reason to believe Epstein was blackmailing anyone and that he does appear to have died by suicide in 2019. The department also said there was no Epstein “client list,” despite Bondi’s February assertion that the “client list” was sitting on her desk for review at that moment.
Some of the attention surrounding Epstein comes from conspiracy theorists, who suggest that powerful individuals in the federal government are helping to cover up Epstein’s misdeeds because they are implicated themselves — particularly Democrats.
Epstein sat in the center of a vast web of wealth and influence, and legitimate questions about his operations may still remain. His circle of friends and acquaintances has long been known to include Trump, along with many prominent individuals of various political stripes.
Wyden, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, asked the Trump administration in March to look into Epstein’s connection with the billionaire financier Leon Black.
Black allegedly gave $170 million to Epstein; the funds are referenced in a settlement agreement Black signed with the U.S. Virgin Islands attorney general that explicitly stated the money was used “to partially fund [Epstein’s] operations in the Virgin Islands,” according to Wyden’s office.
(Black has strenuously denied knowledge of Epstein’s misconduct, saying in 2023 that he gave Epstein money for “legitimate financial advisory services.”)
Wyden alleges that he has also laid eyes on other documents — now in possession of the Trump Treasury Department — that “contain extensive information on the extent to which high-profile individuals paid Epstein staggering sums of money, which was then used to move women around the world or engage in dubious transactions indicative of money laundering.”
As the senator wrote in a June letter to Bondi and others: “These documents also shed light on how major U.S. financial institutions turned a blind eye to the financing of Epstein’s criminal network, simply waiving the payments through without properly reporting them to U.S. authorities in a timely fashion, as required by law. All of the individuals, financial institutions, attorneys and agents who participated in financing Epstein’s illegal activities must be held accountable.”
HuffPost reached out to the Justice and Treasury departments for comment on Wyden’s claims.