Lawmakers grill former JPMorgan executive Jes Staley over Epstein ties
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer said Thursday that former JPMorgan Chase investment banking chief Jes Staley encouraged the bank to retain Jeffrey Epstein as a client despite internal red flags about the convicted sex offender. “It appears that within JPMorgan there were flags — red flags — about Epstein, but Mr. Staley is on record defending Epstein and encouraging JPMorgan to keep him as a client,” Comer, R-Ky., told CNBC outside Staley’s closed-door interview with the committee. “So we have a lot of questions about that.” Staley served as Epstein’s private banker during his more than three decades at JPMorgan and maintained a close personal relationship with him for years. “If it weren’t for banks and bankers like Jes Staley, then Jeffrey Epstein would not have been able to continue to commit these crimes against women,” Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va., an oversight committee member, said at a news conference Thursday. “He would not have continued to do some of the things that he did. But it was because of these banks, that he was …
