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Lawmakers grill former JPMorgan executive Jes Staley over Epstein ties

Lawmakers grill former JPMorgan executive Jes Staley over Epstein ties

Published by Sam Flores

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 …

Goldman Sachs’ Ruemmler to face House over Epstein ties

Goldman Sachs’ Ruemmler to face House over Epstein ties

Published by Sam Flores

FILE PHOTO: White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler listens as President Barack Obama speaks at an installation ceremony for FBI Director James Comey at FBI Headquarters in Washington, Monday, Oct. 28, 2013. Charles Dharapak | AP Goldman Sachs’ former top lawyer Kathryn Ruemmler told the House oversight committee on Wednesday that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein lied to her about his conduct and used his relationships with prominent people to legitimize himself. Ruemmler said in an opening statement that she never saw evidence of ongoing criminal conduct by Epstein and would have reported him to law enforcement if she had seen signs that he was abusing women or girls. She called her decision to deal with him a mistake and said she regretted ever knowing him. “Epstein was a masterful liar, and he clearly lied to me,” Ruemmler said. She added that she now believes he used her and other “respectable people” to bolster his standing. Before entering the closed-door, transcribed interview, Ruemmler told CNBC she was “happy” to answer lawmakers’ questions about her relationship with …

Trump Fed pick Kevin Warsh clears key Senate hurdle, teeing up final vote

Trump Fed pick Kevin Warsh clears key Senate hurdle, teeing up final vote

Published by Sam Flores

The Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday voted to advance Kevin Warsh’s nomination to lead the Federal Reserve, teeing up President Donald Trump’s pick for a final confirmation vote in the Republican-controlled Senate. The vote fell along party lines, with all 13 Republican members voting in favor of the nominee and all 11 Democrats voting against him. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the Banking panel’s ranking member, slammed Warsh before the vote, warning that his confirmation would erode the central bank’s independence from the executive branch. “The Trump economy is in real trouble. Inflation is up, job creation is down. The stink of stagflation is in the air, and President Trump is getting desperate,” Warren said. “A vote today by this committee to advance Mr. Warsh will bring the president one step closer to completing his illegal attempt to seize control of the Fed and to artificially juice the economy,” she said. Warsh cleared the hurdle, as expected, hours before the Fed was set to deliver its latest decision on interest rates – possibly for the last …

Pirro’s probe into the Fed’s Powell will be difficult to appeal

Pirro’s probe into the Fed’s Powell will be difficult to appeal

Published by Sam Flores

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Ferris Pirro speaks during a press conference at the Department of Justice, in Washington, D.C., U.S., Aug. 12, 2025. Annabelle Gordon | Reuters Federal prosecutors in Washington are facing a decision that will help determine whether Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is swiftly replaced or lingers on while politicians fight over his replacement. If they do move ahead with a planned appeal against a recent adverse ruling, as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro insists they will, they risk having the investigation bogged down in complex, unsettled law, former federal prosecutors with experience in appellate law say.  “Regardless of the procedural vehicle they choose, the substantive road ahead of them is brutally steep,” said Sean P. Murphy, a former assistant U.S. attorney who has argued before the judge who ruled against Pirro’s probe of Powell and has briefed the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.  The Trump administration’s plans to quickly confirm former Fed official Kevin Warsh as Powell’s replacement are looking increasingly likely to …

Warsh Fed nomination hearing set for mid-April

Warsh Fed nomination hearing set for mid-April

Published by Sam Flores

Kevin Warsh, former governor of the US Federal Reserve, during the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Spring meetings at the IMF headquarters in Washington, DC, US, on Friday, April 25, 2025. Tierney L. Cross | Bloomberg | Getty Images The Senate Banking Committee will hold a nomination hearing on April 16 for Kevin Warsh to be the next chair of the Federal Reserve, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC. Warsh’s nomination is moving ahead even as a separate criminal probe into the Fed continues, setting up a potential clash between the two parallel processes set in motion by the Trump administration. Banking Committee member Sen. Thom Tillis, R.-N.C. has said he won’t vote to confirm Warsh until the probe is resolved. Yet President Donald Trump is eager to get Warsh confirmed. Tillis’s opposition means Trump can’t do both. But by moving ahead with the hearing, he is trying to anyway. The committee hasn’t yet put the hearing on its public schedule. Warsh and a spokesman for the Senate Banking Committee declined to …

Epstein victims get .5M from Bank of America settlement

Epstein victims get $72.5M from Bank of America settlement

Published by Sam Flores

A Bank of America branch in New York, US, on Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025. Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images Bank of America has agreed to pay victims of notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein $72.5 million to settle a class action lawsuit alleging that the bank facilitated his sex trafficking operation, a New York federal court filing showed Friday evening. The settlement, in which BoA did not admit wrongdoing, is the fourth settlement by a major bank of legal claims by Epstein victims or a government entity alleging they effectively abetted his trafficking while he was a customer. The settlement with BoA must be approved by U.S. District Court in Manhattan Judge Jed Rakoff; such approval is typically granted. The settlement would pay “all women who were sexually abused or trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein, or by any person who is connected to or otherwise associated with Jeffrey Epstein or any Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking venture, between June 30, 2008 and July 6, 2019, inclusive,” according to the filing. Lawyers in the case are “aware that …

Sen. Warren says Fed nominee Kevin Warsh would be Trump rubber stamp

Sen. Warren says Fed nominee Kevin Warsh would be Trump rubber stamp

Published by Sam Flores

Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts and ranking member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, during a hearing in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, March 26, 2026. Aaron Schwartz | Bloomberg | Getty Images Sen. Elizabeth Warren sent a blistering letter to Federal Reserve chair nominee Kevin Warsh on Thursday, predicting he would serve as a “rubber stamp for President Trump’s Wall Street First Agenda,” and accusing him of having learned “nothing from your failures” during a prior stint at the central bank. Warren, D-Mass, in the letter reported first by CNBC, told Warsh that his record as a member of the Fed’s Board of Governors from 2006 until 2011 — which included the 2008-09 financial crisis and Great Recession — “should disqualify you from a promotion.” “But President Donald Trump has vowed that ‘anybody that disagrees with’ him ‘will never be the Fed Chairman,’ ” Warren noted. “And you, apparently, have passed his test,” she added. “As Fed Chair, you will be responsible for directing economy-altering policies that have seriousconsequences …

Federal Reserve says keep Jerome Powell subpoenas quashed

Federal Reserve says keep Jerome Powell subpoenas quashed

Published by Sam Flores

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell participates in a board meeting at the Federal Reserve on March 19, 2026 in Washington, DC. Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images The Federal Reserve Board of Governors urged a judge to reject prosecutors’ request that he reconsider his recent decision to block subpoenas issued in a criminal investigation of Chair Jerome Powell over pricey renovations of the Fed’s headquarters and his congressional testimony about that. The Fed’s lawyers, in a court filing unsealed Thursday, told Judge James Boasberg that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia failed to come even remotely close to meeting the legal threshold for its motion for reconsideration. “The Motion for Reconsideration … does not even mention — let alone meet — the demanding legal standard that applies to the extraordinary relief it seeks,” the Fed’s lawyers wrote in the motion in U.S. District Court in Washington. The attorneys said “reconsideration is warranted only” when there has been a change in the law related to the issues in the case, when there is new …

Dimon warns on AI job losses, calls for government-business incentives

Dimon warns on AI job losses, calls for government-business incentives

Published by Sam Flores

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, departs the Capitol in Washington, Feb. 25, 2026. Graeme Sloan | Bloomberg | Getty Images JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on Tuesday warned that artificial intelligence could cost the U.S. jobs, and suggested the government could create an incentive system for businesses to help soften the blow. “[If] all of a sudden it creates unemployment, that’s a big problem for society,” Dimon said, speaking on a panel with Palantir defense chief and former U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis, at the Hill and Valley Forum in Washington. “I don’t know the answer yet, but I would suggest it’s the following: It can’t be just government. It’s got to be business,” Dimon said. “But the government could create a system of incentives that business does the right thing to retrain people, early retirement, moving people … if we have the right system in place, we can accommodate much quicker.” Dimon warned the economic changes driven by AI will happen quickly, warning that they may happen faster than other recent technological advances …

Trump signals DOJ should pursue Powell probe, complicating Warsh Fed nomination

Trump signals DOJ should pursue Powell probe, complicating Warsh Fed nomination

Published by Sam Flores

President Donald Trump on Thursday signaled his continued support for a Department of Justice investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell — a stance that could further delay the confirmation of Powell’s would-be successor, Kevin Warsh. “He’s under investigation because he’s building a building for hundreds of billions of dollars more than it’s supposed to cost,” Trump said of Powell in the Oval Office. He was referring to the ongoing renovation of the Fed’s headquarters and another building in Washington, the purported focus of the federal criminal probe of the central bank chairman led by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro. Trump repeatedly claimed that the construction projects cost up to $4 billion, though the actual total is roughly $2.5 billion. Powell has accused the government of launching the investigation in retaliation for his refusal to lower interest rates as much or as quickly as Trump has demanded. Powell “should be lowering rates immediately,” Trump said unprompted in his Oval Office remarks, “but he won’t do that because he’s a stubborn, incompetent person, and that’s a bad …