Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime accountant is answering questions on Capitol Hill Wednesday as half of the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the late convicted sex offender.
Richard Kahn is behind closed doorways for a deposition because the Republican-led panel seeks solutions on Epstein’s funds. The committee had been digging into these funds for months forward of the interview by means of subpoenas to banks and visits to the Treasury Departmnet.
“We have a lot of questions. I think everyone in America has questions about how Epstein was able to accumulate so much wealth,” House Oversight Chair James Comer mentioned forward of the deposition. “We have specific financial questions we’re going to be asking today and hopefully we’ll be able to report some new information.”
Comer mentioned a quantity of the expenditures his panel has discovered went towards faculty tuition for some of Epstein’s victims. The Kentucky Republican mentioned he additionally needs to know if Kahn was concerned in creating any settlements for victims and whether or not he helped Epstein arrange video cameras on Epstein’s island, which was one thing talked about in the Epstein recordsdata however hasn’t been confirmed.
“We’ve been getting bank records in for a long time, and we haven’t talked publicly about them because we were waiting to bring the accountant in once we got a feel on where the money we think was going and where it was coming from,” he mentioned.
NCS has reached out to an lawyer for Kahn for remark.
In November, Comer subpoenaed JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank for his or her data on Epstein and since then, his panel has reviewed roughly 44,000 monetary paperwork and counting, a committee aide advised NCS.
Epstein had at the least 64 trusts and entities related to him and there have been massive quantities of cash being moved every day between Epstein’s entities and his associates, the aide added. Some of these actions included funds to ladies, tuition to varied universities and routine massive money withdrawals for unknown functions, in line with the aide.
Committee workers have additionally gone to the Treasury Department to view the suspicious exercise reviews – a sort of confidential report monetary establishments file to flag doubtlessly nefarious exercise however that don’t essentially point out wrongdoing — associated to Epstein.
One month after Epstein died in a jail cell whereas awaiting trial on sex trafficking expenses, JPMorgan Chase reported to US authorities greater than $1 billion in transactions it seen as suspicious from October 2003 till July 2019, in line with court docket data. The transactions included Wall Street titans, quite a few associated firms, his former lawyer and others. Two accounts included in the report have been linked to Russian banks Alfa Bank and Sberbank.
The panel will use this info in its questioning of Kahn at present to probe extra about how Epstein made his cash, how he spent it, and whether or not it was used for any unlawful actions.
Kahn can also be a co-executor of Epstein’s property.
Upon coming into the deposition room, Kahn was requested by reporters Wednesday if he was on Capitol Hill to reply questions and Kahn’s counsel interjected, “Yes.”
Looking forward, Comer mentioned he hopes he can end his investigation by the top of this Congress however talked about that every time they interview a witness, new leads emerge.
Last week, the panel in a bipartisan vote moved to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi, but it surely has not but been despatched to her. Comer mentioned Wednesday he hopes to depose her “very soon.”