The Jeffrey Epstein scandal—long a source of political, legal, and cultural fallout—continues to cast a shadow over the Trump administration. And now, it’s spreading into new territory. On Wednesday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a senior Democrat and chair of the Senate Finance Committee, called on Congress to launch a formal probe into the financial networks that tied Epstein to a web of banks, investors, and tech elites—including billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel.
For years, public attention on the “Epstein files” has revolved around his sex crimes and speculation over what the Justice Department might be concealing. But Wyden argues the bigger story may lie elsewhere: inside the Commerce and Treasury Departments, where thousands of documents detail Epstein’s money flows. Those files, he says, paint a clearer picture of who enabled Epstein’s wealth, who benefited from it, and who may still be protecting it.
One of those figures, Wyden notes, is Thiel. Epstein is reported to have invested $40 million in 2015 and 2016 into Valar Ventures, a firm Thiel co-founded that draws its name from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings mythology. The investment came just a few years before Epstein’s arrest and subsequent death in 2019. While Thiel has admitted to meeting Epstein “a handful of times,” he has consistently downplayed the relationship, often shifting focus to Epstein’s connections with prominent left-leaning tech executives like Bill Gates and Reid Hoffman.
The contrast is striking: in public, Thiel has treated Epstein as a distant acquaintance, while records suggest his companies had more direct financial involvement than previously acknowledged.
On Wednesday, Wyden doubled down, introducing new legislation—the Produce Epstein Treasury Records Act (PETRA)—to compel Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to release Epstein-related financial documents that the department has so far withheld. According to Wyden, Senate staff reviewed portions of those files in person in 2024 but were denied access to the complete set. The senator accuses the administration of stonewalling.
And Thiel is hardly the only name Wyden wants answers about. His probe targets a who’s who of global finance and elite institutions:
- Major banks, including HSBC, Citibank, Wells Fargo, and Russian giants AlfaBank and Sberbank.
- Leon Black, the Apollo Global Management co-founder who funneled $170 million to Epstein for what he described as “tax advice”—a sum Wyden calls “wildly out of proportion.”
- Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling scout and alleged Epstein accomplice, who was himself found dead in prison in 2022.
- Alan Dershowitz, the high-profile lawyer who defended Epstein and whose name appears in Epstein’s infamous contact book.
In Wyden’s view, these relationships demand closer scrutiny—not only for what they reveal about Epstein’s role as a fixer for the rich, but also for what they suggest about a broader ecosystem of elites willing to look the other way.
Wyden’s frustration with the Justice Department has been mounting for years. Since 2022, he has pressed both DOJ and Treasury to pursue what he calls a “follow the money” blueprint: an inquiry into more than $1 billion in wire transfers linked to Epstein’s accounts. He has accused Attorney General Pam Bondi of failing to deliver on Trump’s early promise of full transparency around the case. Instead, Wyden says, the DOJ has released heavily redacted documents that shed little new light, while devoting resources to political culture-war campaigns.
“The American people deserve to know the truth,” Wyden wrote in a recent letter. “This is not just about one man’s crimes. It is about the financial systems and power structures that shielded him, and the individuals who may still be benefiting from those same networks.”
Whether Congress acts on Wyden’s call remains to be seen. But if the push gains traction, it could mark a turning point: expanding the Epstein scandal beyond the realm of criminal justice and into the heart of political and financial accountability. For Thiel, and for many others whose names have surfaced in Epstein’s orbit, the scrutiny may just be beginning.