With the fingers of lawmakers like Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., pointed at JPMorgan Chase for having been a host for late financier Jeffrey Epstein’s billions in suspicious transactions, CEO Jamie Dimon suggested the Obama administration has more answers than he does.
“They knew a lot; the government already knew a lot,” Dimon told CNN in a wide-ranging interview Wednesday night. “They knew in ’07, ’08, ’09, 2010 a lot more than JPMorgan.
“And so if I were Ro Khanna, I’d be asking, what did the government know? What did they do?”
Not only that, but after JPMorgan Chase self-reported Epstein’s suspicious transactions, Dimon said, the government during the Obama administration “allowed it to go on.”
“And after we kicked [Epstein] out in 2013, a lot of the really bad stuff happened after that,” Dimon continued. “So that happened under their watch.”
Dimon has no problem with “transparency” on Epstein before the House Oversight Committee, he said.
“First of all, we were in litigation on this, and a lot has already been made public — all of my emails; I had tons of stuff,” Dimon said.
“I have no problem with any transparency. Zero.”
“There’s nothing that they’re going to learn from me that’s important,” added Dimon.
It was JPMorgan Chase that took action on Epstein’s suspicious activity reports, he said.
“We kicked him out in 2013,” he continued. “You should know this is important to me.”
“And I think our government should listen closely: We have been finding these suspicious activity reports — which we’re not allowed to disclose, but it came out in the courts recently — I think as early as 2002 and 2004 and 2008.”
“The government knew a lot more than we did.”
Do not blame and “punish” the bank here because it took action, Dimon said.
“So all that time, I wish we hadn’t done anything with him,” he continued. “I never personally knew him or anything like that.”
“But what we knew, we could have known, we should have known, and then we get punished: That’s why we debanked people, which I also don’t like.”
It was a necessary action to take for fear of retribution from the government and Justice Department, according to Dimon.
“We have to kick people out, and we can make their lives horrible because we’re afraid of the DOJ or regulators coming after us,” Dimon said.
Other banks have taken debanking actions, too, but Dimon regrets aiding a “beast” like Epstein.
“Now you’ve seen that tons of other people debank them after that, not JPMorgan,” he concluded. “So yes, we regret it.”
“You can say we’re late, that we could have, should have, maybe kind of know.”
“But boy, we, I wouldn’t do — no one in our company would do — anything to aid and abet a beast like that.”
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