Donald Trump suing CNN as he claims defamation - and seeks $475m in damages, says court filing.
Reports from early September report Donald Trump offered them a deal. Guess they refused it? Perhaps they will change their mind if losing even more money is something they seek to avoid.
Credit Suisse is scrambling to reassure investors and clients about its liquidity and capital position as rumours swirl that the major global investment bank is on the verge of collapse.
Is the dollar going to return to gold-based / backed by gold?
It first needs to pass the House, then the Senate, and then the President to become Law.
Upcoming elections are November 8 for everything from legislative seats, the Sheriff’s office, County positions, Congressional representatives and the State’s governor. The election ends Nov. 8.
President Trump would need to be reinstated as well? Can the election outcome be trusted?
A lot could happen between now and then.
H.R.9157 - To define the dollar as a fixed weight of gold, and for other purposes:
Are the SEC and The Federal Reserve Part of the Story of the Bankrupt FTX?
At this point, most people who follow the cryptocurrency as well as the equity and bond markets are aware of the awful mess at FTX Group and its ‘sister’ company, Alameda Research. Both of these companies were founded by Sam Bankman-Fried.
The sudden collapse of crypto exchange "FTX" and its Bankruptcy filing today, has revealed that FTX presently suffers from $10-$50 BILLION in liabilities with almost ZERO assets . . . and among those liabilities, are "investments" made by . . . . UKRAINE . . . .
At this early hour, it appears that tens-of-billions in American "Military Aid" to Ukraine, which was allegedly to be used to fight Russia, was cash that Ukraine DID NOT use to fight Russia, but instead invested into FTX!
And, as you might guess from the Bankruptcy filing . . . . it now seems that all the money . . . is gone.
Yes, you read that correctly: Instead of using US Military Aid to fight Russia, Ukraine "invested" part or all of it, into FTX, and right now, it looks like all the money is gone.
If this report is true, then I think it is another classic example of a massive theft (with an attempt made to make it look like some form of bad/unlucky investment decision)
Deuteronomy 25:13 Thou shalt not have in thy bag diverse weights, a great and a small.
25:14 Thou shalt not have in thine house diverse measures, a great and a small.
25:15 [But] thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the "I AM" thy God giveth thee. The New Song
FTX was global money-laundering. Hope the Federal Reserve is next. Where is all the gold?
How World Economic Forum, others are hiding their past ties with FTX
The shocking implosion of the FTX crypto exchange has become an embarrassment for a who’s who among global elites, with some issuing mea culpas — and others apparently scrambling to hide their ties to its disgraced, 30-year-old founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
Web archive sites show that the World Economic Forum — whose glitzy shindig in Davos, Switzerland, is a must-attend for billionaires and world leaders each year — had previously listed FTX as one of its “partners,” touting the Bahamas-based firm as a “cryptocurrency exchange built by traders, for traders.”
Bankman-Fried also was a speaker at Davos last May alongside luminaries such as Google financial chief Ruth Porat and Bill Winters, CEO of the London-based financial giant Standard Chartered. Nevertheless, WEF has since scrubbed any mention of FTX from its website in the days after the crypto exchange filed for bankruptcy.
“FTX was a World Economic Forum partner. In light of last week’s events, their partnership was suspended and they were removed from the Partners section of our website,” a spokesman for the Geneva-based organization headed by Klaus Schwab told The Post on Monday.
According to one WEF insider, Bankman-Fried likely landed on the group’s site because he donated cash to the group, in addition to his upcoming speaking gig.
“World Economic Forum survives on donations from outside organizations and companies that are typically aligned with their mission and politics,” the source told The Post.
Photographs circulated online over the weekend showing former President Bill Clinton sitting next to Bankman-Fried on stage — along with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair — at an event in the Bahamas this past April.
The Post has sought comment from Clinton’s office.
While big financial firms like Sequoia Capital, SoftBank and BlackRock have revealed FTX losses in public filings, insiders say wealthier individuals bought in privately, typically plowing money into FTX through family offices.
“This is like a Madoff situation … almost everyone in tech and Hollywood invested in this thing,” one investor close to FTX told The Post. “Now no one wants to admit to it.”
One insider told The Post that Jan Koum — the Ukrainian billionaire who co-founded WhatsApp and sold it to Facebook for $19 billion in 2014 — bought a stake through his family office. Reps for Koum didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Twitter users promoted a video over the weekend showing CNBC investing maven Jim Cramer touting Bankman-Fried as “the JP Morgan of his generation.” The Post has reached out to Cramer and CNBC seeking comment.
Kevin O’Leary — the “Shark Tank” investor who also admitted he has taken a bath on an FTX bet — posted a mea culpa on his Twitter account over the weekend, telling his 951,000 followers: “As an investor, you will never get it right every time. You will make some mistakes. Sometimes big ones like FTX.”
Tom Brady and now-ex-wife Gisele Bündchen are among FTX’s most recognizable victims. After starring in several TV commercials promoting the crypto exchange, they got an equity stake in FTX that’s now likely worthless. Golden State Warriors basketball star Steph Curry was also given an equity stake in FTX. Curry, Brady and Bündchen were not immediately available for comment.
Elsewhere, Bankman-Fried’s FTX earlier this year collaborated with former White House advisor Anthony Scaramucci’s SALT conference to launch a star-studded cryptocurrency summit in the Bahamas.
“We are thrilled to welcome FTX as SALT’s premier global partner and to launch Crypto Bahamas. Sam and the FTX team are building the most important company in crypto and the financial industry more broadly,” Scaramucci said at the time.
The Salt Crypto Bahamas Conference included the now-infamous scene in which Bankman-Fried shared the stage with supermodel Bündchen to talk about sustainability practices within the crypto sector.
As Bankman-Fried’s estimated fortunate ballooned as high as $26 billion during the pandemic-era cryptocurrency boom, the FTX founder used the windfall to cultivate cozy relationships in media.
Bankman-Fried was an early financial booster for Semafor, the blue-chip news startup co-founded by New York Times veteran Ben Smith and former Bloomberg CEO Justin B. Smith.
The ex-billionaire poured money into Semafor in a Series A fundraising round that also drew contributions from media types such as The Atlantic chairman emeritus David G. Bradley and The Information founder Jessica Lessin.
Semafor mentioned its ties to Bankman-Fried in its reporting on FTX’s abrupt bankruptcy filing last week. The outlet also addressed its dealings with the FTX founder in a story revealing Bankman-Fried wanted to start a competitor to publishing platform Substack, staffed with his “favorite writers.”
“We closed our seed round in May and received all investments in full in USD. While we are monitoring the evolving situation closely, we don’t anticipate an impact on our financial outlook or our business,” Semafor spokesperson Meera Pattni said in a statement.
The Post has reached out to Semafor for further comment.
Bankman-Fried’s family foundation also gave a $5 million grant to ProPublica earlier this year to “support investigations into ongoing questions about the COVID-19 pandemic, biosecurity and public health preparedness.”
In June, Puck News reported that Bankman-Fried was hiring staffers with experience in journalism to advise him on media relations strategy for his pet projects, including future pandemic preparedness. His aides purportedly took meetings with “several newsrooms” on potential nonprofit and for-profit partnerships — all funded by Bankman-Fried.
Bankman-Fried was open about his ambitions to become a political kingmaker — once declaring that he planned to spend a whopping $1 billion in the 2024 presidential election cycle. He later walked back that brazen claim, describing it as a “dumb quote.”
The disgraced executive may have dialed back the extent of his planned political spending, but he was still a major booster of left-leaning candidates and causes during the 2022 midterm elections. He was the Democratic Party’s second-biggest donor, trailing only George Soros.
Bankman-Fried spent an estimated $36 million on political donations during the stretch run — most of which fueled Democrat-tied causes, according to the Financial Times.
Some $27 million went to Protect Our Future, a super PAC backing Democratic candidates committed to pandemic prevention. His spending included a disastrous $11 million investment in the campaign of Carrick Flynn, a first-time House candidate in Oregon who failed to advance past the primary.
Bankman-Fried’s sudden downfall has rankled some within the Democratic Party who expected a major influx of donor cash in the months ahead.
“Sam didn’t live up to his commitments,” one Democratic lobbyist told the outlet.
As for the WEF, its ties with Bankman-Fried extend to his family as well. His aunt, Linda P. Fried, an epidemiologist who serves as the dean of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, is listed on the WEF’s website.
Jeffrey Epstein Victims Sue Banks, Allege They ‘Benefited’ From His Crimes
Two major banks are being sued by victims of the late financier, and convicted sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein, accusing them of benefitting from his crimes.
The pair of separate lawsuits were filed on Thursday against JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. They allege that the banks “knowingly and intentionally benefited” from “assisting, supporting, facilitating, and otherwise providing the most critical service for the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking organization to successfully rape, sexually assault, and coercively sex traffic” women, Fox Business reported.
“We believe this claim lacks merit and will present our arguments in court,” a Deutsche Bank spokesperson said.
“JPMorgan said it will not comment on pending litigation,” Fox News said.
The women allege that complicity from the banks in Epstein’s sex trafficking operation was essential and gave the billionaire an “appearance of legitimacy.”
Epstein died in prison as while awaiting trial for sex trafficking. Ghislaine Maxwell, an associate of Epstein, was found guilty of child sex trafficking in December.
The walls are closing in on some of the people who associated themselves with the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was convicted of sex trafficking.
A judge has ruled that the public interest is more important than the right to privacy, The Daily Mail reported.
Judge Loretta Preska on Friday ruled that the material concerning eight people should be unsealed despite one subject claiming it could ‘wrongfully harm (his) privacy and reputation.’
Among those whose names are mentioned in the documents are a British woman, Ghislaine Maxwell’s former personal assistant, who was accused of taking part in the sexual abuse of minors.
Judge Preska overrode objections from Tom Pritzker, the billionaire executive chairman of the Hyatt Hotels, and ordered material related to him be made public.
The documents are part of a defamation case brought against Maxwell by accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre in 2016 that was later settled.
The trove of material has been released on a rolling basis after with the first set coming in 2019, two days before Epstein killed himself, after numerous requests from media organizations.
There were 16 ‘Non-Party Does’ that objected to the information being released, but the judge said that the majority of sensitive information had been made known during Maxwell’s trial and ordered dozens of documents to be unsealed.
But the judge did make some concessions to the people that objected to the material being made known.
“Certain details contained within certain documents that are not public…objecting Does have set forth a sufficient interest to preserve sealing,” the judge said.
Back in October it was reported that Maxwell, may be getting set to talk and that could mean a world of issues for some famous people.
“Bill Clinton should be sweating bullets,” reporter Kari Donavan said.
“It has long been suspected by court watchers that a notorious list of clientele for Epstein, allegedly including Clinton, would eventually emerge, and they may be right, according to investigators and lawyers who have followed the complex case.
“The shocking warning came out of a new documentary that investigated the role of Britain’s Prince Andrew and his close ties as a client of Epstein’s, when the comments were made that there could be further revelations about other clients of Epstein’s because his madame- Ghislaine Maxwell – who was recently convicted for crimes associated with Epstein has until June 2023 to cooperate with prosecutors, in possibly overturning more names,” she said.
In a new documentary, “Prince Andrew Banished,’ Florida-based attorney Spencer Kuvin, who represents some of Epstein’s victims, said that Maxwell has until 2023 to cooperate with authorities to get her free from jail quicker.
Kuvin told viewers in a new documentary that convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell still has the chance to come forward with new revelations in a possible effort to reduce her 20-year sentence.
Last December, Maxwell was convicted of five federal charges for recruiting and grooming teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein.
She found out her prison fate in June and now has until 2023 to further cooperate with prosecutors, noted Kuvin, adding that Maxwell said she intends to appeal her sentence.
“She is really the person who holds all the secrets,” he said in the documentary that is airing on Peacock. “This isn’t the end of the story.”
Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence, has been moved to a low-security prison in Tallahassee, Florida, the Daily Mail first reported.
Maxwell will be eligible for release on July 17, 2037.
Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Just Drew Wall Street’s Sharpest Judicial Critic to Preside over Cases Accusing Them of ‘Complicity’ with Jeffrey Epstein
After the stock market meltdown of 2008, Wall Street could hardly have found a sharper critic on the federal bench than Senior U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff. He repeatedly wondered aloud why more megabank executives didn’t go to jail — both from the bench, and in case the public didn’t hear him, in the pages of the New York Review of Books.
On Tuesday, Judge Rakoff gained two explosive cases alleging an especially sordid brand of financial malfeasance: Proposed class action lawsuits accusing JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank of “complicity” in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking of women and girls.
The lawsuit against Deutsche Bank accused the German lender of violating federal anti-racketeering law, a statute designed to combat the Mafia and organized crime gangsters. Both actions allege violations of the Trafficking Victim Protection Act (TVPA) and detail the reasons both banks knew their customer, Jeffrey Epstein, from the flood of evidence against him that emerged from his Florida prosecution.
“The Epstein sex-trafficking venture’s purpose included enticing, obtaining, harboring, and transporting the young victims without drawing unwanted attention from law enforcement,” both the lawsuits read in identical passages. “The venture had everything a sex-trafficking organization needed — funding, infrastructure, the appearance of legitimacy, and perhaps most importantly a complicit banking institution. It was by many accounts the most powerful and wealthiest sex-trafficking venture ever created.”
Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase have both faced Judge Rakoff in his courtroom before — and had a rough go of it.
In fact, just this past June, Rakoff gave the green light to a separate lawsuit by Deutsche’s shareholders who sued that bank for doing business with risky clients like Epstein and Russian oligarchs.
“[T]he statements at issue here describe specific processes that the Bank and its executives allegedly knew were being systematically undermined by an unwritten but pervasive practice of exempting ultra-rich and politically connected wealth management clients from the due diligence processes supposedly required by Bank policy,” Rakoff found in a 30-page opinion in May, which sent the case to discovery.
Deutsche Bank ultimately settled that lawsuit in September for $26.25 million. The latest lawsuit seeking to hold the bank liable for its relationship with Epstein does not specify how much in damages it seeks, only that this amount should be tripled under the RICO statute.
Also earlier this year, Rakoff advanced another lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase filed by former compliance employee Shaquala Williams, who claims to have been fired for raising concerns about its program. The July ruling found that a reasonable jury could determine that Williams’s “protected activity” contributed to her termination. That case also settled in October, on undisclosed terms.
CNN legal analyst Jennifer Rodgers, who spent decades as a federal prosecutor inside the Southern District of New York, knows Rakoff as “fearless.”
“I think some litigants may be wary of drawing Judge Rakoff for a few reasons: he moves cases more swiftly than most judges do, he has seen it all so he does not suffer fools (or foolish arguments), and he is absolutely fearless,” Rodgers told Law&Crime. “A judge who refuses to approve major settlements with the SEC or rules that the federal death penalty is unconstitutional is not afraid of reversal or criticism. Judge Rakoff is about as far from a rubber stamp as you can get.”
More than a decade ago, Rakoff famously tried to stop a settlement between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Citigroup allowing the bank to pay $285 million — “pocket change,” in the judge’s view — for allegedly selling $1 billion in mortgage-backed securities that they secretly shorted. One trader was quoted calling the securities “a collection of dogsh!t,” in internal messages.
The Second Circuit ultimately reversed Rakoff on appeal, finding that he didn’t have the authority to block the settlement.
Deutsche Bank released a brief statement to Law&Crime: “We believe this claim lacks merit and will present our arguments in court.”
JPMorgan Chase declined to comment.
Attorney Brad Edwards, who represents the Epstein survivors suing the banks, did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.
Account Closed: Banks and Businesses Cancel Christians
When the National Committee for Religious Freedom, headed by former U.S. Senator and Religious Freedom Ambassador Sam Brownback, needed a bank account, they went to JPMorgan Chase. After only a few weeks they learned their account had been closed.
Multi-Faith Charity Has Its Account Closed. Why?
"I went in to make a deposit at a branch here in Kansas about three or four weeks after we'd opened up the account," Brownback told us, "And the teller there said 'That account's been closed.' And I go, 'What?' and they said, 'That account's been closed. Your funds will be sent to you in a couple of weeks.' And then later they came back and said, 'Well, if you'll disclose who gives more than 10% of your funds to you and your criteria for supporting candidates as a 501c4 we'll consider re-opening up the account.'
Brownback says he received an apology letter but still doesn't know why the bank made the decision.
"We want some real answers as to why this happened," Brownback said, "And normally what I found is that most people just kind of slink away and say, 'Okay, I got de-banked or I got de-platformed, I'll go do something else or I'll find another way.' And we thought, that's the very reason we exist, The National Committee for Religious Freedom, so you can have a free exercise which includes public or private and should include your commercial transactions too.
JP Morgan Chase: This Was Not Religious or Political Discrimination
CBN News contacted JP Morgan Chase about the incident, and they assured us that, "We would never discontinue a relationship because of religious or political affiliation, and we didn't with this client…We're not proud of how we handled communicating with this client about what we needed from them, and have apologized verbally and in writing."
And while JP Morgan Chase didn't give us a reason for the account closure either, they did say "We are required by anti-money laundering laws to conduct customer due diligence."
Wondering whether it was discrimination, The National Committee for Religious Freedom has set up a website called "Chased Away." The group is encouraging people of faith to come forward if they've been denied service by a company or bank.
Needed in 'Woke' Corporate Boardrooms: People of Faith
"It also tells me we need to get people of faith in the boardroom," Brownback said. "I think we need to start campaigns to get a person of faith on every major corporate board in America."
It used to be that companies only wanted your business. These days, they may not, if they think you believe in the wrong things.
This year the Canadian government weaponized its financial system against citizens protesting COVID-19 restrictions, freezing their bank accounts.
U.S. Banking Laws Help Cover for Discrimination
Banking law expert Nicholas Anthony at the CATO Institute believes American banks could do the same thing. Anthony says, "Banks have really a ton of power that people don't realize, to shut down accounts, to freeze accounts, and to end up holding them for really any number of reasons. And worse yet, it could really be for any reason. And we don't get to understand why, because there are many cases in which they're prohibited by law from saying what actually happened."
Earlier this year Republican lawmakers warned banks to stop taking liberal positions on social and cultural issues.
"I'd heard of this happening to literally dozens of groups," Brownback says. "I've had people tell me they got de-banked or an insurance company denied them."
Journalist Rod Dreher, author of Live Not By Lies, believes that increasing numbers of companies care more about their stands on social issues than the bottom line, and he believes Christians will be the victims.
Dreher warns, "Corporations like Walmart, Apple, and others are richer and more powerful than some countries in this world. Because they believe that they're fighting for virtue, they're going to use the power that they have within the corporations and every other institution to persecute the church. People think I'm radical for saying this sort of thing, but I'm telling you, it's coming."
Wells Fargo Ordered To Pay $3.7 Billion Over Widespread Illegal Activity
Wells Fargo has been ordered to pay $3.7 billion by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) for a variety of illegal activity, including wrongfully foreclosing on homes, illegally repossessing vehicles, incorrectly assessing fees and interest, and charging surprise overdraft fees.
The WEF annual meeting for 2023 will take place in Davos, Klosters from 16-20 January.
The theme of the meeting is “Cooperation in a Fragmented World” and some 2,500 people are expected to fly in from around the world to talk as they discuss the future of the planet.
Zelensky Says Ukraine Ready to Join WEF Meeting in Davos as It Seeks Postwar Funding
When the global elites of business, finance, banking, and big government convene in Davos next month at the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting, Ukraine will be amongst them.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed Wednesday his government will be at the meeting in Switzerland, revealing he also spoke again with BlackRock Inc CEO Larry Fink about financing the postwar rebuilding effort.
“Specialists of this company are already helping Ukraine to structure the fund for the reconstruction of our state,” Zelensky, who had a video call with Fink in September, said in his evening address to the nation, according to Bloomberg.
He didn’t say whether he would attend the January 16-20 WEF in person or participate virtually, although in the past he has been a regular attendee at the elite gathering.
Bloomberg reports Zelensky also said he spoke to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and raised the prospect of Italy contributing to the strengthening of Ukraine’s air defences.
Zelensky made an appearance via video at the last meeting back in May when he compared his country to Israel in conversation with WEF boss Klaus Schwab.
The Ukrainian leader told the Davos organiser that, whatever happens in the present conflict, “with a neighbour like this” — namely Russia — “anything can happen anytime, and the war may repeat itself,” as Breitbart News reported.
Zelensky said that, over the longer term, the Ukrainian government would have to “create such conditions that people and businesses would not be afraid to exist in this country, to thrive in this country.”
He then asked the gathering to consider the “example of Israel”, which finds itself in a similarly hostile environment — but has managed to establish itself as a relatively prosperous economy with a thriving tech industry despite existing in a near-constant state of low-level conflict, or worse.
Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the WEF had earlier greeted members with the salute: “the future is built by us… by a powerful community… as you here in this room.”
“History at a Turning Point: Government and Business Strategies” was the theme for the 2022 edition of the 51-year-old NGO lobbying organization founded by the German engineer and economist.
The WEF annual meeting for 2023 will take place in Davos, Klosters from 16-20 January.
The theme of the meeting is “Cooperation in a Fragmented World” and some 2,500 people are expected to fly in from around the world to talk as they discuss the future of the planet.
No less than $65 trillion in unrecorded dollar debt circulates across the global financial system in non-U.S. banks and shadow banks. To put in perspective, global GDP sits at $104 trillion.
This dollar debt is in the form of foreign-exchange swaps, which have exploded over the last decade due to years of monetary easing and ultra-low interest rates, as investors searched for higher yields. Today, unrecorded debt from these foreign-exchange swaps is worth more than double the dollar debt officially recorded on balance sheets across these institutions.
Based on analysis from the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), the above infographic charts the rise in hidden dollar debt across non-U.S. financial institutions and examines the wider implications of its growth.
Dollar Debt: A Beginners Guide
To start, we will briefly look at the role of foreign-exchange (forex) swaps in the global economy. The forex market is the largest in the world by a long stretch, with trillions traded daily.
Some of the key players that use foreign-exchange swaps are:
Corporations
Financial institutions
Central banks
To understand forex swaps is to look at the role of currency risk. As we have seen in 2022, the U.S. dollar has been on a tear. When this happens, it hurts company earnings that generate revenue across borders. That’s because they earn revenue in foreign currencies (which have likely declined in value against the dollar) but end up converting earnings to U.S. dollars.
In order to reduce currency risk, market participants will buy forex swaps. Here, two parties agree to exchange one currency for another. In short, this helps protect the company from unfavorable foreign exchange rates.
What’s more, due to accounting rules, forex swaps are often unrecorded on balance sheets, and as a result are quite opaque.
A Mountain of Debt
Since 2008, the value of this opaque, unrecorded dollar debt has nearly doubled.
Driving its rise in part was an era of rock-bottom interest rates globally. As investors sought out higher returns, they took on greater leverage—and forex swaps are one example of this.
Now, as interest rates have been rising, forex swaps have increased amid higher market volatility as investors look to hedge currency risk. This appears in both non-U.S. banks and non-U.S. shadow banks, which are unregulated financial intermediaries.
Overall, the value of unrecorded debt is staggering. An estimated $39 trillion is held by non-U.S. banks along with $26 trillion in overseas shadow banks around the world.
Past Case Studies
Why does the massive growth in dollar debt present risks?
During the market crashes of 2008 and 2020, forex swaps faced a funding squeeze. To borrow U.S. dollars, market participants had to pay high rates. A lot of this hinged on the impact of extreme volatility on these swaps, putting pressure on funding rates.
Here are two examples of how volatility can heighten risk in the forex market:
Exchange-rate volatility: Sharp swings in USD can spur a liquidity crunch
U.S. interest-rate volatility: Sudden rate fluctuations can mean much higher costs for these trades
In both cases, the U.S. central bank had to step in to provide liquidity in the market and prevent dollar shortages. This was done through pumping cash into the system and creating swap lines with other non-U.S. banks such as the Bank of Canada or the Bank of Japan. These were designed to protect from declining currency values and a liquidity crunch.
Dollar Debt: The Wider Implications
The risk from growing dollar debt and these swap lines arises when a non-U.S. bank or shadow bank may not be able to hold up their end of the agreement. In fact, on a daily basis, there is an estimated $2.2 trillion in forex swaps exposed to settlement risk.
Given its vast scale, this dollar debt could have greater systemic spillover effects. If participants fail to pay it could undermine financial market stability. Because demand for U.S. dollars increases during market uncertainty, a worsening economic climate could potentially expose the forex market to more vulnerabilities.
Jamie Dimon Is Fighting a Deposition in a Devastating Lawsuit Charging JPMorgan With Being the Cash Conduit for Jeffrey Epstein’s Sex Crimes
The Attorney General’s office of the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) has filed a First Amended Complaint against JPMorgan Chase that has less redactions than an earlier version. The complaint makes devastating and detailed charges. It charges that the bank sat on a pile of evidence that Jeffrey Epstein was running a child sex trafficking ring as it continued to keep him as a client; accept his lucrative referrals of wealthy clients; and provided him with large sums of cash and wire transfers to pay off victims – one of whom was a “14-year old sex slave.”
Attorneys for the bank are now resisting allowing Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon from being deposed under oath in the matter as to what he knew and when he knew it.
The lawsuit includes the following charges against JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States with more than 5,000 local branches serving mom and pop accounts:
“JP Morgan did business with Jeffrey Epstein from as early as 1998 to 2013. In that time, JP Morgan serviced approximately fifty-five Epstein-related accounts collectively worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
“…at least 20 individuals paid through JP Morgan accounts were victims of trafficking and sexual assault in Little St. James, New York, and/or other Epstein properties. These women were trafficked and abused during different intervals between at least 2003 and July 2019, when Epstein was arrested and jailed, and these women received payments, typically multiple payments, between 2003 and 2013 in excess of $1 million collectively. Epstein also withdrew more than $775,000 in cash over that time frame from JP Morgan accounts, especially significant as Epstein was known to pay for ‘massages,’ or sexual encounters, in cash. Financial information also reflects payments drawn from JP Morgan accounts of nearly $1.5 million to known recruiters, including to the MC2 modeling agency, and another $150,000 to a private investigative firm.”
“In 2006, JP Morgan’s Global Corporate Security Division found ‘[s]everal newspaper articles . . . that detail the indictment of Jeffrey Epstein in Florida on felony charges of soliciting underage prostitutes.’ At that time, JP Morgan decided to continue doing business with Epstein but concluded his account ‘should be classified as high risk’ and require special approval.”
“In January 2011, JP Morgan’s AML [Anti Money Laundering] compliance director requested re-approval for the bank’s relationship with Epstein from JP Morgan’s then-General Counsel ‘in light of the new allegations of human trafficking . . .’ Another JP Morgan employee responded: ‘I thought we did that in approving a $50 million new line of credit last month?’ ”
“In JP Morgan’s January 2011 review of Epstein’s accounts, the bank concluded there were ‘no material updates’ but noted: ‘A few news stories during 2010 connects Jeffrey Epstein to human trafficking. The coverage team . . . all met to discuss the situation and agreed to enhance monitoring and document a discussion with the client. Jes Staley discussed the topic with Jeffrey Epstein who replied there was no truth to the allegations, no evidence and was not expecting any problems…”
“In March 2011, JP Morgan’s Global Corporate Security Division reported:
“Numerous articles detail various law enforcement agencies investigating Jeffrey Epstein for allegedly participating, directly or indirectly, in child trafficking and molesting underage girls. Jeffrey Epstein has settled a dozen civil lawsuits out of court from his victims regarding solicitation for an undisclosed amount.”
“JP Morgan’s banking relationship with Epstein was known at the highest levels of the bank. For instance, an August 2008 internal email states, ‘I would count Epstein’s assets as a probable outflow for ’08 ($120mm or so?) as I can’t imagine it will stay (pending Dimon review).’ ”
Let’s pause right here for a moment. JPMorgan Chase has a history of employing some of the most sophisticated sleuths in the country, including people with prior employment at the CIA, FBI and Secret Service. To believe that JPMorgan Chase did not know what Epstein was all about by 2011 is to believe in the tooth fairy.
In July 2006, the Palm Beach, Florida Police Chief, Michael Reiter, had handed a deeply investigated case over to the FBI according to the courageous reporting of Julie K. Brown in the Miami Herald in November of 2018. According to Brown, by November 2006, “The FBI begins interviewing potential witnesses and victims from Florida, New York and New Mexico.” It took just eight months of FBI interviews for the U.S. Attorney’s office to have a 53-page Federal indictment ready to file against Epstein involving sexual assaults against multiple underage girls. But the indictment was never filed. (You can read the sordid details of how the case was corrupted by the leading U.S. Attorney for the Justice Department, Alex Acosta, in the Miami Herald here.)
A deal was worked out by Acosta and Epstein’s high-powered lawyers where federal charges were dropped against Epstein and he was allowed to plead guilty to only Florida state charges: one count of soliciting sex from a minor and one count of soliciting sex from an adult woman. Epstein was able to serve just 13 months in jail in Palm Beach County, where he was given a work release program to sit in a fancy office 12 hours a day and driven there daily by his private chauffeur in his limousine.
The deal was sealed in such a way that it denied his victims knowledge of what went down. In February of 2019, a federal judge ruled that the secrecy of the deal violated the federal Crime Victims’ Rights Act.
Had it not been for the public outrage unleashed as a result of the series of articles in the Miami Herald and its gripping personal video interviews with Epstein’s victims, the Justice Department might never have brought the new case against Epstein in 2019. We say that based on the following: A full two years before the Miami Herald published its seminal series on Epstein, the bestselling author, James Patterson, together with John Connolly and Tim Malloy, released a detailed investigative book on Epstein titled “Filthy Rich” in October of 2016. It covered Epstein’s sexual assaults on young girls and the corrupted process involving the Justice Department that got him off the hook for his serial crimes. Patterson included a July 24, 2006 letter that Palm Beach Police Chief Reiter had sent to the parents of a young girl who had accused Epstein of assaulting her when she was 14. Reiter wrote to the parents:
“I do not feel that justice has been sufficiently served by the indictment that has been issued. Therefore, please know that this matter has been referred to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to determine if violations of federal law have occurred. In the event that the FBI should choose to pursue this matter, the Palm Beach Police Department will assist them in their investigation of potential violations of federal law.”
The FBI, the investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Justice, decided to stand down and allow the co-opted deal cooked up by Acosta and Epstein’s attorneys to go forward, which permitted Epstein to continue his sexual assaults on underage girls.
Julie Brown’s seminal book on the Epstein case, Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story, was released in July of 2021. Epstein died in a Manhattan jail on August 10, 2019. His death was ruled a suicide.
The lawsuit filed by the U.S. Virgin Islands contains deeply disturbing new information about a top JPMorgan Chase bank executive’s close personal relationship with Epstein. According to the First Amended Complaint, Jes Staley, the head of JPMorgan’s Private Bank at the time, “exchanged approximately 1,200 emails with Epstein from his JP Morgan email account.” Several of the emails contained photos of young women in seductive poses and others further “suggest that Staley may have been involved in Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation.” For example, the lawsuit reveals the following:
“In July 2010, Staley emailed Epstein saying ‘That was fun. Say hi to Snow White[,]’ to which Epstein responded ‘[W]hat character would you like next?’ and Staley said ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ ”
Staley also visited Epstein while he was serving his jail time in Florida for sex with a minor and made numerous visits to Epstein’s private island in the Virgin Islands.
There were other giant red flags which the bank chose to ignore as it maintained Epstein’s accounts. The complaint reveals the following:
“Between 2003 and 2013, Epstein and/or his associates used Epstein’s accounts to make numerous payments to individual women and related companies. Among the recipients of these payments were numerous women with Eastern European surnames who were publicly and internally identified as Epstein recruiters and/or victims. For example, Epstein paid more than $600,0000 to Jane Doe 1, a woman who—according to news reports contained in JP Morgan’s due diligence reports—Epstein purchased [as a sex slave] at the age of 14. Like other women who received payments from Epstein, Jane Doe 1 listed Epstein’s apartments on 66th Street in New York City as her address, which should have been a red flag to JP Morgan.
“Epstein and/or his associates also made significant cash withdrawals and 95 foreign remittances with no known payee. For example, Hyperion Air, Inc.—the Epstein-controlled company that owned Epstein’s private jet—issued over $547,000 in checks payable to cash purportedly for ‘fuel expenses when traveling to foreign countries.’ Additionally, between January 2012 and June 2013, Hyperion converted more than $120,000 into foreign currency. Many of these cash withdrawals either exceeded the $10,000 reporting threshold or were seemingly structured to avoid triggering the reporting requirement. This is particularly significant since it is well known that Epstein paid his victims in cash.”
According to the lawsuit, none of these giant red flag transactions were reported by the bank to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) as required by law, but were characterized internally as “reasonable, normal, and expected for the type of business or industry in which the client engages.”
There are now two books and an award-winning series in the Miami Herald that remove any doubt that the U.S. Department of Justice was corrupted in its initial handling of the Epstein case. The nagging question today is why is the U.S. Virgin Islands bringing these new charges against JPMorgan Chase instead of the U.S. Department of Justice?
