by Pam Martens and Russ Martens, Wall St On Parade:
From 2010 through 2014, the most intractably corrupt industry in America – Wall Street – was the perpetual focus of the Senate Permanent Subcomittee on Investigations. The late Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) Chaired that Subcommittee throughout that span of time. Then Levin retired from the Senate in January 2015 and Wall Street’s name disappeared from hearings of that critical Subcommittee from 2015 through 2023 – a span of nine years.
Wall Street did not become less corrupt from 2015 through 2023 to warrant it falling off the hearing schedule of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. In fact, Wall Street became more corrupt. Financial watchdog, Better Markets, wrote the following in its detailed report in October on Wall Street mega banks’ unending crime spree:
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“For years, Better Markets has been tracking the enforcement actions against the nation’s six largest banks (the ‘Six Megabanks’) [JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup/Citibank, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley], along with some of the most prominent civil cases. The number of actions and the dollar amounts of penalties and damages imposed on the banks have grown with each passing report. And the violations and fines keep piling up, apparently having no impact on the lawbreaking habits at these banks.
“Over the past 15 months, since the most recent report in May 2022, the pattern of illegal conduct by the Six Megabanks has continued. Their RAP Sheets now include 60 more new cases, which have resulted in over $9 billion in additional fines arising from the banks’ ripping off, discriminating against, or financially endangering their customers. That means the totals from last year’s RAP Sheet report have risen from 430 to 490 actions and more than $198.5 billion in monetary sanctions to $207.7 billion in monetary sanctions….”
How is it possible that the United States Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations cannot see that the criminal activities of Wall Street’s mega banks threaten the national security of the United States? That reality certainly didn’t get past Senator Carl Levin after these same banks blew up the U.S. financial system in 2008 and unleashed the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. More than 10 million Americans fell into poverty and more than 6 million families lost their homes to foreclosure as a result of Wall Street’s crime spree.
The leader of the crime pack is the largest federally-insured bank in the United States – JPMorgan Chase – whose co-opted Board of Directors has allowed the same Chairman and CEO, Jamie Dimon, to remain at the helm despite the bank admitting to five criminal felony counts since 2014 and racking up a rap sheet that is unprecedented in U.S. banking history.
According to the official website of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, its mandate includes “investigating all aspects of crime and lawlessness within the United States which have an impact upon or affect the national health, welfare and safety, including syndicated crime, investment fraud schemes, commodity and security fraud, computer fraud, and the use of offshore banking and corporate facilities to carry out criminal objectives.”
Let that last phrase linger in your mind for a moment: “the use of offshore banking and corporate facilities to carry out criminal objectives.”
This year four separate parties filed federal lawsuits against JPMorgan Chase for its active involvement in facilitating the sex trafficking of minors by Jeffrey Epstein. In addition to his own sexual assaults of these underage girls, Epstein pimped them out to his wealthy pals in what appears to have been a honey trap to gain valuable information, including, potentially, espionage information. (Epstein was closely aligned with a number of key political figures in Israel. Epstein’s largest financial backer was Leslie Wexner, former Chairman and CEO of the retailing conglomerate, L Brands, and a major supporter of Israel. Wexner’s mansion in Manhattan and one of his corporate jets ended up being owned by Epstein. Even more bizarre, Wexner gave Epstein a full power-of-attorney over his financial affairs.)
As a result of the lawsuits, internal emails from executives and staff of JPMorgan Chase were released, showing how the bank pampered this sexual predator in exchange for referrals of wealthy clients. It also appears that the bank was laundering money for Epstein by not filing the legally required Suspicious Activity Reports for more than a decade.
A former FBI agent, Shaun O’Neill, was prepared to testify at trial as an expert witness that JPMorgan Chase had “impeded” the investigation of Epstein and provided the following vast sums of hard cash to him:
“Epstein was able to withdraw large amounts of cash from his JPMC accounts for years [Redacted]. In the year 2003, Epstein was able to withdraw highly suspicious amounts of cash totaling $175,311. In 2004, he withdrew $840,000. In 2005, he withdrew $904,337. In 2006, he withdrew $938,625. In 2007, he withdrew $526,000. In 2008, he withdrew $469,000. In 2009, he withdrew $165,011. In 2010, he withdrew $253,397. In 2011, he withdrew $260,000. In 2012, he withdrew $290,000. In 2013, he withdrew $197,152.”
Despite JPMorgan Chase being charged in 2014 by the U.S. Department of Justice, and admitting to, two felony counts for decades of laundering money for Ponzi kingpin Bernie Madoff, and also ignoring its legal requirement to file Suspicious Activity Reports, there has been no criminal case brought against JPMorgan Chase in this matter by the U.S. Department of Justice, nor has the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations held a hearing on the matter. (See our report: New Court Documents Suggest the Justice Department Under Four Presidents Covered Up Jeffrey Epstein’s Money Laundering at JPMorgan Chase.)
All of which leads us to the Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), a former federal prosecutor himself and Connecticut’s Attorney General for five terms, from 1991 to 2011.
Why has a man so imminently qualified to root out crime failed to hold one single hearing dealing with crime on Wall Street? Naturally, that question took us straight to Blumenthal’s largest campaign donors. It’s not a pretty picture.
The campaign money watchdog, OpenSecrets.org, shows that lobbyists for Israel and law firms representing Wall Street mega banks were the largest donors to Blumenthal for election cycles 2019 through 2024.
AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) is Blumenthal’s number one donor, giving $140,113 in that time span. Paul Weiss, the Big Law firm that gets Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase out of criminal charges, is Blumenthal’s second largest donor, giving $83,625 in that time span.
Blumenthal’s third largest donor is Apollo Global Management, a private equity firm whose former Chairman and CEO, Leon Black, has been sued by a woman who charged that he raped her in Epstein’s mansion in Manhattan. Black is under investigation for his ties to Epstein by the Senate Finance Committee, which wants to know why Black paid Epstein $158 million.
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