Jamie Dimon built his reputation warning about cockroaches before they emerge. The CEO who sees around corners. The Oracle of Wall Street with the fortress balance sheet. So Senator Ron Wyden gave him until October 31 to explain how he missed the billion-dollar cockroach crawling through JPMorgan Chase for fifteen years.
Jeffrey Epstein processed $1.1 billion through JPMorgan accounts while the bank’s compliance officers screamed warnings. The general counsel wrote explicitly that Epstein “should not be a client.” That was 2011. JPMorgan kept him two more years. Then sat on suspicious activity reports for six years—filing them only after Epstein’s arrest made headlines in 2019.
Dimon testified under oath he never knew Epstein was a client until 2019. But internal emails show decisions about Epstein marked “pending Dimon review.” His general counsel was reviewing Epstein materials “for Jamie” back in 2008. Either the most sophisticated bank CEO in America didn’t know about a client processing a billion dollars through accounts flagged thousands of times by his own compliance team—making him incompetent—or he knew and lied under oath, making him a criminal.
The deadline arrives Thursday. Wyden wants internal communications, the “Project Jeep” review JPMorgan conducted after Epstein’s second arrest, and every document explaining why the bank waited six years to report transactions it knew were suspicious in 2013. JPMorgan will almost certainly refuse, citing confidentiality rules designed to protect financial institutions from scrutiny.
And the person who could override those objections now works for Donald Trump.
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