A wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump Organization
Heather Cox Richardson, night owl, posted a lengthy summary very early this morning of a CBS report I missed entirely from Monday night. A heavily redacted, 69-page document released with the Epstein files reveals that, along with the sex trafficking investigation, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) began another investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and fourteen others in 2010. Code named “Chain Reaction,” this investigation focused on drug trafficking, prostitution, and money laundering.
Hovering in the background of the lurid child sex trafficking stories is the question of how Epstein made the money behind his private island, private jet, and multiple properties. The DEA’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) wanted to know too. The special unit was following the money Epstein stashed in Switzerland, France, the Cayman Islands and New York. Until Pam Bondi’s DOJ shut down the unit.
Under Analytical Findings, the 2015 report states, “DEA reporting indicates the above individuals are involved in illegitimate wire transfers which are tied to illicit drug and/or prostitution activities occurring in the U.S. Virgin Islands and New York City.”
HCR adds (I’m adding her links):
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, described OCDETF as “a premier task force set up to identify, disrupt and dismantle major organized crime and drug trafficking operations.” It “worked with partners across federal agencies to conduct sophisticated investigations into transnational organized crime and money laundering. OCDETF frequently targeted dangerous drug cartels , the Russian mafia and violent gangs moving fentanyl and weapons.” The Trump administration dismantled OCDETF.
[…]
Wyden has been investigating the finances behind Epstein’s criminal sex trafficking organization. His investigation has turned up the information that JPMorgan Chase neglected to report more than $4 billion in suspicious financial transactions linked to Epstein. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has refused to produce the records to the Senate Finance Committee, and in September, Wyden introduced the Produce Epstein Treasury Records Act (PETRA) to get access to them. In November, Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, but it did not cover Treasury financial records.
“The basic question here is whether a bunch of rich pedophiles and Epstein accomplices are going to face any consequences for their crimes,” Wyden said, “and Scott Bessent is doing his best to make sure they won’t. My head just about exploded when I heard Bessent say it wasn’t his department’s job to investigate these Epstein bank records…. From the beginning, my view has been that following the money is the key to identifying Epstein’s clients as well as the henchmen and banks that enabled his sex trafficking network. It’s past time for Bessent to quit running interference for pedophiles and give us the Epstein files he’s sitting on.”
When the CBS News reporters broke the story about the DEA investigation, Wyden said: “It appears Epstein was involved in criminal activity that went way beyond pedophilia and sex trafficking, which makes it even more outrageous that [Attorney General] Pam Bondi is sitting on several million unreleased files.”
CBS followed up on Thursday with more on the DEA investigation, quoting a letter Wyden sent to DEA Administrator Terrance C. Cole:
“The fact that Epstein was under investigation by the DOJ’s OCDETF task force suggests that there was ample evidence indicating that Epstein was engaged in heavy drug trafficking and prostitution as part of cross-border criminal conspiracy,” Wyden writes. “This is incredibly disturbing and raises serious questions as to how this investigation by the DEA was handled.”
Not to mention that the names of those under investigation were blacked out in violation of provisions of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Wyden wrote:
Since Epstein and his 14 co-conspirators were never charged by the DOJ for drug trafficking or financial crimes, I am concerned that the DEA and DOJ during the first Trump Administration moved to terminate this investigation in order to protect pedophiles. I am also concerned that the excessive redactions of this memorandum for operation “Chain Reaction” go well beyond the intent of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which allows for redactions to protect the identity of victims, not members of a criminal sex trafficking organization. Since this memorandum designated as “sensitive but unclassified” there is no reason to withhold an unredacted version of this document from the U.S. Congress.
Au contraire, Wyden implies in subtext, the Trump administration must think there is. Follow the money.
Wyden asks Cole to provide by March 16 an unredacted copy of the OCDETF report and for answers to what “illicit drug activities” Epstein and others were engaged in. “Did the OCDETF or any other DOJ component recommend that Epstein and/or any of his 14 co-conspirators be charged with drug trafficking, money laundering or any other federal crimes that did not include sex or human trafficking?” Also, why were there never any drug trafficking or money laundering charges filed against any in the group? And what was the legal basis for redacting their names?
Stay tuned for more stonewalling.