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Ron Wyden, a Democrat, Won’t Let Go of the Jeffrey Epstein Case, Either

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Senator Ron Wyden has found that four banks waited until Mr. Epstein’s arrest on federal charges to flag $1.5 billion in suspicious transactions. Mr. Wyden wants the documents made public.

Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, with his hands on his hip, looking at and speaking to someone facing him while another person stands nearby and looking at a phone.

July 17, 2025, 10:53 a.m. ET

President Trump and his administration want to move on from Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and sexual offender, who once associated with some of the world’s richest and most powerful people. Some of Mr. Trump’s most loyal supporters insist there is more to uncover.

But it’s not just the MAGA faithful who are refusing to let it go.

Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee, has been digging into Mr. Epstein’s financial network for the past three years. Some members of his staff have viewed confidential files that shed light on the immense sums of money that, they say, Mr. Epstein moved through the banking system to fuel his vast sex-trafficking network.

In particular, filings by four big banks flagged more than $1.5 billion in transactions — including thousands of wire transfers for the purchase and sale of artwork for rich friends, fees paid to Mr. Epstein by wealthy individuals, and payments to numerous women, the senator’s office found. The filings came after Mr. Epstein was arrested in 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges.

Large money transfers to individuals, foreign countries or obscure companies are the kind of things banks are supposed to be examining as potentially suspicious. Some of the Epstein money transfers disclosed in a report from JPMorgan Chase involved accounts at two Russian banks before those institutions were subject to U.S. sanctions. A few transactions red-flagged were for as much as $100 million.

Mr. Wyden said his investigation into Mr. Epstein’s finances had taken on new urgency now that the Trump administration was balking at releasing any of the information seized by the F.B.I. from Mr. Epstein’s homes or information collected from the nation’s banks. Like many Republicans on the far right, Mr. Wyden and a growing number of Democrats believe there are more details about Mr. Epstein that the federal government needs to reveal.

“We felt from the beginning this was a follow-the-money case,” Mr. Wyden said in an interview. “This horrific sex-trafficking operation cost Epstein a lot of money, and he had to get that money from somewhere.”