House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said Thursday that Mr. JP Morgan Chase Investment banking head Jess Staley encouraged banks to keep Jeffrey Epstein as a client despite internal red flags about the convicted sex offender.
Outside of a closed-door interview with the committee, Comer, R-Kentucky, told CNBC that “there appeared to be red flags about Mr. Epstein within JPMorgan, but Mr. Staley has been on record defending Mr. Epstein and encouraging JPMorgan to retain him as a client.” “I have a lot of questions about that.”
Mr. Staley served as Mr. Epstein’s private banker during his more than 30 years at J.P. Morgan and maintained a close personal relationship with Mr. Epstein over the years.
British regulators cited more than 1,000 emails between the two, including messages in which Mr. Staley described their friendship as “deep” and called Mr. Epstein “family.”
Staley later became Barclays’ chief executive, but resigned in 2021 amid a dispute with British regulators over his relationship with Epstein. He later lost an appeal against a decision to ban him from the UK financial industry for misleading regulators about these relationships.
JPMorgan agreed in 2023 to pay $290 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Epstein’s victims and $75 million to settle a separate suit brought by the U.S. Virgin Islands, without admitting liability. The bank then reached a confidential settlement with Staley.
—Karen James Sloan contributed to this report.
