Jes Staley told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee he passed confidential JPMorgan Chase information to Jeffrey Epstein, including his own communications with the Federal Reserve during the 2008 financial crisis and the $44bn the private bank took in over a single fortnight, according to a transcript the committee released on 26 August 2026.

Staley sat for a voluntary transcribed interview on 24 July 2026 in Room 2154 of the Rayburn House Office Building, with Brendan V. Sullivan Jr of Williams & Connolly and Kathleen Harris as counsel. The committee is examining the federal handling of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

Epstein's client referrals brought JPMorgan well over $100m, by Staley's own account. For 13 months from June 2008 Epstein took Staley's calls from a jail in Palm Beach County, where he was serving a sentence for procuring a girl under 18 for prostitution.

The information that left the bank

Staley told investigators he shared with Epstein his communications with the Federal Reserve during the 2008 crisis, two pending transactions, his own pay, client relationships and the terms of his eventual move to Barclays, Bloomberg reported from the transcript. The $44bn figure was two weeks of deposit flight into JPMorgan at the point when Lehman Brothers had collapsed and the Federal Reserve was deciding which institutions to keep alive.

"I think you respect confidentiality, but it was at my discretion if I wanted to talk to friends of mine about issues at J.P. Morgan," Staley told the committee. Asked whether any rule barred him from taking confidential matters to Epstein in particular, he said no.

Epstein had "very interesting insights into the financial markets," Staley said, at what he called "a very difficult time in those markets". The man receiving those confidences was a registered sex offender in custody, holding no licence, no job at a regulated firm and no duty of confidentiality to anyone.

Staley described Epstein to the committee as "a smart friend to help me think through this stuff" and said he had raised arranging a temporary release "for the weekend" so the two could discuss business, Banking Dive reported from the transcript.

Cash, compliance and the tip-off

JPMorgan records put Epstein's cash withdrawals at $40,000 to $80,000, several times a month. Staley advocated keeping the account open after the 2008 Florida guilty plea.

"Closing a checking account is a tough move," he told the committee, and he said he had been "completely unaware" the accounts were facilitating rape trafficking.

Representative Suhas Subramanyam pressed him on whether he had personally defended the relationship. "I left it to the bank's compliance department, legal department, and Private Bank to determine whether he maintained an account," Staley said. JPMorgan cut Epstein back to a checking account and dropped him as a client in 2013.

Representative Walkinshaw put a 2011 New York Times account to him, that Staley had alerted Epstein to JPMorgan's heightened sensitivity about the constant withdrawals. "Quite possibly, yes," Staley said, and he believed Mary Erdoes, head of the bank's asset and wealth management arm, had done the same. Asked whether the point was to let Epstein change his behaviour and avoid further scrutiny, Staley said no. He also accepted he had probably told Epstein of his designation as a high-risk client and had sought to have it reviewed.

Staley testified he discussed Epstein with Jamie Dimon twice, "once in 2006 when Epstein was indicted, and I believe once in 2008 when Epstein went to jail". Dimon testified under oath in 2023 that he recalled knowing nothing about Epstein until federal prosecutors charged him in July 2019. Neither man has been accused by any prosecutor of giving false testimony, and the committee published the two accounts without adjudicating between them.

The Snow White emails

On 9 July 2010 Staley wrote to Epstein, "That was fun. Say hi to Snow White," in an exchange the Justice Department filed as EFTA00894090. Epstein asked what character he would like next. Staley wrote back, "Beauty and the Beast." Epstein replied, "Well one side is availble [sic]."

A separate message to Epstein the next day, filed as EFTA00741531, reads: "the snow white was f..ed twice as soon as she put her costume))". Three weeks earlier, on 20 June 2010, Epstein had asked a young woman to obtain a Snow White costume from a costume shop.

"Did you ever have sex with a young woman in a Snow White costume?" a committee representative asked. "No, I did not," Staley said.

Pressed on why the second email would have been sent at all if nothing had happened, Staley said, "I have no idea who else she was with. I, it has nothing to do with me, though." He went on: "I may have seen her in apartment [sic] and prompted that email." Asked to confirm he may have seen her, emailed Epstein to say "that was fun," and yet not had sex with her, Staley said, "That's correct." He cited the 16 years since to explain what he could not recall.

Asked whether he would agree that was a pretty incredible coincidence, Staley said, "Sure. Why not?"

Asked whether he and Epstein used Disney princesses as code names for selecting women for sexual encounters, he said no.

The assistant on 66th Street

Staley described one sexual encounter with a woman who worked for Epstein, whom he first met at Epstein's Manhattan townhouse and believed was in her twenties or thirties. It took place months later at her apartment on 66th Street, in 2009 or 2010.

"I think we talked. I believe we were sitting on her couch together while we talked. And one thing led to another, and we had an intimate engagement," Staley told the committee. Asked how he knew it was consensual, he said, "My recollection is, she invited me into her bedroom."

Investigators told Staley the woman had sued Epstein for sexual abuse and settled with his estate, carving Staley out and reserving the right to sue him. "No, I was not aware of this," he said, and he told the committee he did not know Epstein had ever abused his assistants.

Staley made a comparable admission under oath 17 months earlier. At the Upper Tribunal in London in March 2025 he said he had sex with a member of Epstein's staff at an apartment belonging to Epstein's brother in New York, and told the court the disclosure put his marriage at risk. Whether that is the same woman is not established in either record.

The regulatory record

The Financial Conduct Authority banned Staley from senior roles in UK financial services and set a penalty of £1.8m, which he referred to the Upper Tribunal. The tribunal dismissed the reference on 26 June 2025 and the FCA issued its final notice on 23 July 2025.

Judges found Staley had approved a letter to the regulator that falsely described his relationship with Epstein as not close and said contact had ceased before he joined Barclays, when emails showed the two still in touch into 2016 and 2017. They found he acted recklessly, had a clear motive to play down the relationship, believed the truth would stay hidden, gave evidence that in places lacked credibility and showed no remorse. In his own correspondence he had called Epstein one of his deepest and most cherished friends.

"Mr Staley chose to take a calculated risk that we would take his inaccurate account at face value," the FCA's enforcement director said. The fine came down to £1.1m after Barclays declined to release his deferred shares. UK regulators had penalised him once before, fining him £642,430 jointly with the Prudential Regulation Authority in 2018 over his attempts to identify a whistleblower.

Justice Department records show roughly 1,200 communications between the two men between 2008 and 2012. Staley met Epstein in the late 1990s, around the time he took over JPMorgan's private bank. Barclays announced his appointment as chief executive on 28 October 2015 and he stepped down in November 2021 when the FCA investigation surfaced.

Project Jes

Epstein worked to secure Staley the Barclays job through the public relations executive Ian Osborne, under the label "Project Jes", according to material put before the Upper Tribunal and cited by lawmakers. Osborne is not accused of wrongdoing.

Nigel Higgins, the Barclays group chairman, told the FCA in August 2019 that he did not think the Epstein connection needed a board discussion, and the board acknowledged in a witness statement that it never asked Staley when he had last been in contact with Epstein. Barclays told the regulator that October that Staley and Epstein were not close.

Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representatives Ro Khanna and Raja Krishnamoorthi wrote to Higgins on 22 July 2026, setting a reply date of 5 August. "It is deeply unclear how Barclays, in supposedly investigating Staley's connection to Epstein, failed to uncover this decades-long relationship," they wrote. Their eight questions asked the bank to name the executives who approved the October 2019 disclosure, to say whether directors contacted Epstein, Ian Osborne, George Osborne or Mervyn King about Staley's candidacy between 2012 and 2015 and to say whether the Federal Reserve, the FDIC or the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency had approached the bank since the Epstein files were released. Barclays US LLC holds about $200bn in assets.

Staley left with £2.4m in fixed salary and a £120,000 pension allowance running to late 2022, plus £107,000 in repatriation costs, a package that "could cover the £1.1 million fine levied by regulators more than twice over," the lawmakers wrote. The same letter states that newly unsealed documents indicate the Justice Department examined allegations against Staley in 2019 involving rape and bodily harm. No charge has followed in any jurisdiction, the department has announced no case and Staley denies wrongdoing.

Warren wrote on 28 October 2025 to Federal Reserve vice chair for supervision Michelle Bowman, Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould and acting FDIC chairman Travis Hill, seeking investigations into Staley, Dimon and former JPMorgan general counsel Stephen Cutler. Cutler had warned that Epstein was not an honourable person, Warren wrote, and Staley repeatedly went to bat for him inside the bank. She asked for confirmation of an opened investigation by 14 November 2025. None has been announced.

Justice Department records released in December 2025 show Epstein named Staley and the former Treasury secretary Larry Summers as executors in draft wills. Staley told the committee he signed trust documents in 2014 and an amendment in 2015, then declined the role because he did not want the association.

What the law reaches

JPMorgan settled a class action brought by Epstein's victims for $290m in June 2023 and paid the US Virgin Islands $75m on 26 September 2023. Both suits ran on the beneficiary provision of the federal anti-trafficking statute, 18 U.S.C. 1595, which lets victims sue anyone who knowingly benefits from taking part in a venture the defendant knew or should have known was trafficking. The bank made no admission of liability.

Section 5318(g) of title 31 bars a bank and its officers from telling any person involved in a transaction that a suspicious activity report has been filed, a prohibition carrying criminal exposure under 31 U.S.C. 5322. The bar attaches to a filed report. Ron Wyden, as ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, established that JPMorgan filed its reports on Epstein only in 2019, after his arrest and six years after dropping him as a client. "For banks to withhold these reports until a suspect like Jeffrey Epstein is already behind bars is an impediment to justice," Wyden wrote. On the public record no filed report existed in 2011, when Staley described making the disclosure.

Staley's UK prohibition rests on the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and the FCA's individual conduct rules, which reach honesty toward the regulator rather than the underlying conduct. No US regulator has publicly opened a case against him. He has never been charged with a crime in any jurisdiction and he denies wrongdoing.

JPMorgan reportedly declined to comment on the transcript. Barclays has not published a reply to the 22 July letter.