Early in 2024, during the Biden administration, Sen. Mike Crapo, (R-ID), had a chance to provide the world with financial information about disgraced sex trafficker and financier Jeffrey Epstein.
It only recently became known that Crapo was asked to join the senior Democrat on the U.S. Senate Finance Committee in a subpoena for the Epstein material held by the Treasury Department. For some reason he refused.
For years, and particularly before it became standard practice to refuse to work on virtually anything with anyone in the other party, Crapo and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), now the ranking member of the Crapo-led Finance Committee, have annually teamed up to pass legislation to provide funding to rural schools. They did so again in June in an increasingly rare example of bipartisan legislating.
But bipartisanship clearly doesn’t extend to information the government, particularly the treasury department, has on Jeffrey Epstein. Crapo, it seems clear, has been stonewalling any effort to force release of material that members of his staff reviewed more than 18 months ago.
One of many mysteries about Epstein, who was in prison in 2019 awaiting trial at the time of his death, was how the guy amassed a fortune estimated at $550 million, as well as several lavish estates and a private island.
Where all that money came from and for what purpose are central questions in understanding Epstein’s crimes. Wyden has been on the case for months. When he asked Crapo to help him, Crapo refused.
After the New York Times recently reported that JP Morgan Chase, “arguably the world’s most prestigious bank,” had long treated Epstein as a “treasured client,” while essentially ignoring mounting questions about the vast sums of money flowing into and out of his accounts, Wyden insisted the bank provide information. The Oregon senator demanded an explanation as to why the bank continued to cover up Epstein’s “suspicious transactions for six years after firing him as a client.”
Earlier Wyden introduced legislation that would compel Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett to turn over his department’s Epstein record, while Crapo voted against a separate effort to compel release of Epstein documents.
But before Wyden introduced his Epstein legislation a curious thing happened, way back in February 2024, while Joe Biden was still president. As the Oregon Capital Chronicle reported earlier this month:
“For several hours on Valentine’s Day in 2024, staff from Oregon U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden’s office and the Senate Finance Committee sat in a room in the U.S. Treasury Department reviewing, thousands of suspicious financial transactions made by deceased and disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The transactions totaled more than $1 billion and included payments to women from eastern European countries where many of Epstein’s alleged victims are from. Along with Wyden’s team, staff from the offices of Republican Sens. Mike Crapo of Idaho and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee reviewed the documents, according to Wyden. Spokespersons for Crapo and Blackburn did not respond to requests for comment from the Capital Chronicle.
The Senate staffers we allowed to look at document and take notes but not allowed to make copies.
“And because you can’t take that stuff out of the room,” Wyden said, “I asked, particularly, if the Republicans would be willing to join me in a subpoena that would get the rest of the information that was crucial, and they wouldn’t do that. And that was during the Biden years.”
In a Sept. 2, 2025, letter to Bessent, the Treasury secretary, Wyden elaborated on one document his staff and Crapo’s reviewed in 2024.
“One of the documents,” Wyden wrote, “indicates that between 2003 and 2019, there were more than 4,725 wire transfers totaling $1.08 billion involving Jeffrey Epstein and his associates … These documents also contain details of hundreds of millions in payments to Epstein from Wall Street financiers, including $170 million Leon Black paid Epstein for purported tax and estate planning advice.”
Leon Black is a billionaire private equity investor. In 2023 Black reached a $62.5 million settlement with the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands that, as the Times reported, released Black “from any potential claims arising out of the territory’s three-year investigation into the sex trafficking operation” of Epstein. Black contends he did nothing wrong, but he sure did pay a lot of money to avoid further investigation of ties to Epstein.
“Furthermore,” Wyden wrote to Bessent, “records show that Epstein used correspondent accounts at multiple Russian banks, to process hundreds of millions of payments related to potential sex trafficking. Several of these Russian banks are now under U.S. sanctions and many of the women and girls Epstein targeted came from Russia, Belarus, Turkey and Turkmenistan. These records outline specific names of women and girls, correspondent bank account numbers in Russia used to process the payments, as well as details on Epstein associates who had signatory authority over Epstein’s accounts and signed off on payments related to sex trafficking.”
So why hasn’t Mike Crapo joined Ron Wyden in a quest to get this information from the Treasury Department? Why has Crapo put on ice his committee’s oversight jurisdiction over the Treasury Department? Why wouldn’t he pursue Epstein documents while Biden was in office?
I emailed Crapo’s press office, as well as person who handles communication for the Finance Committee. No response. Nothing.
Specifically I asked:
- Did Crapo’s staff review the Epstein documents?
- Who specifically was involved in the review?
- Why has Crapo not joined Wyden in pressing for the release of these materials?
I wanted to know — perhaps his constituents would like to know — why Crapo wasn’t demanding answers about Epstein’s finances. Opinion polls clearly indicate the American public, people in both parties, believe answers are necessary.
There are at least three plausible reasons Crapo refused when he had the chance to get Epstein information to the public.
Perhaps he thinks it’s not important.
Perhaps he thinks there is some privacy question involved, even though Epstein is long dead and his chief accomplice is in jail.
Or perhaps those records Crapo’s staff saw in 2024 get too close to someone Crapo doesn’t want to offend, a big campaign contributor or Wall Street banker or CEO.
Had Crapo agreed to that subpoena last year, we’d likely know a whole lot more about Jeffrey Epstein today.
- Marc C. Johnson is a former Idaho broadcast journalist and was a top aide to Idaho Gov. Cecil D. Andrus. His most recent books include "Mansfield and Dirksen; Bipartisan Giants of the Senate" and "Tuesday Night Massacre: Four Senate Elections and the Radicalization of the Republican Party."
