Tag: banks

US justice department investigates Epstein’s alleged ties to Clinton and banks after Trump request

The US justice department has confirmed it will investigate paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged links to major banks and several prominent Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton.

US President Donald Trump said he would ask Attorney General Pam Bondi and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Clinton and others.

Bondi said the department “will pursue this with urgency and integrity”.

Trump’s request came days after thousands of Epstein’s emails were released by the US Congress – which include mentions of the US president. Democrats have accused Trump of trying to deflect from questions about his relationship with Epstein.

The emails, released by the US House Oversight Committee, include many high-profile figures. A review by the Wall Street Journal found that Trump was mentioned in more than 1,600 of the 2,324 email threads.

Robert Garcia, the leading Democrat on the committee, said Trump was attempting to “deflect from serious new questions we have about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein”.

In addition to Clinton, Trump said he asked the Department of Justice (DoJ) to investigate banks JP Morgan and Chase, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, who is also a prominent Democratic donor.

“Epstein was a Democrat, and he is the Democrat’s problem, not the Republican’s problem!” he wrote on social media.

“They all know about him, don’t waste your time with Trump. I have a Country to run!”

Clinton has strongly denied he had any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.

A spokesperson for JPMorgan Chase said the firm regrets “any association” they had with Epstein, and added that the firm “did not help him commit his heinous acts”.

It is unclear whether Trump made a formal request or issued a directive to the justice department, or if Bondi was responding to his post on his Truth Social platform.

Bondi said she appointed US Attorney Jay Clayton to lead an investigation into the ties with Epstein.

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Fannie Mae officials ousted after sounding alarm on sharing confidential housing data

A confidant of Bill Pulte, the Trump administration’s top housing regulator, provided confidential mortgage pricing data from Fannie Mae to a principal competitor, alarming senior officials of the government-backed lending giant who warned it could expose the company to claims that it was colluding with a rival to fix mortgage rates.

Emails reviewed by The Associated Press show that Fannie Mae executives were unnerved about what one called the “very problematic” disclosure of data by Lauren Smith, the company’s head of marketing, who was acting on Pulte’s behalf.

“Lauren, the information that was provided to Freddie Mac in this email is a problem,” Malloy Evans, senior vice president of Fannie Mae’s single-family mortgage division, wrote in an Oct. 11 email. “That is confidential, competitive information.”

He also copied Fannie Mae’s CEO, Priscilla Almodovar, on the email, which bore the subject line: “As Per Director Pulte’s Ask.” Evans asked Fannie Mae’s top attorney “to weigh in on what, if any, steps we need to take legally to protect ourselves now.”

While Smith still holds her position, the senior Fannie Mae officials who called her conduct into question were all forced out of their jobs late last month, along with internal ethics watchdogs who were investigating Pulte and his allies.

The dismissals rattled the housing industry and drew condemnation from Democrats. It also gave Pulte’s critics evidence to support claims that he has leveraged the nonpublic information available to him to further his own political aims.

“This is another example of Bill Pulte weaponizing his role to do Donald Trump’s bidding, instead of working to lower costs amidst a housing crisis,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee. “His behavior raises significant questions, and he needs to be brought in front of Congress to answer them.”

The episode marks the latest example of Pulte using what is typically a low-profile position in the federal bureaucracy to enhance his own standing and gain the attention of President Trump. He’s prompted mortgage fraud investigations of prominent Democrats who are some of the president’s best known antagonists, including Sen. Adam Schiff of California, New York Attorney General Letitia James and California Rep. Eric Swalwell.

In June, he ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to prepare a proposal for the firms to accept cryptocurrency, another industry Trump has boosted, as part of the criteria for buying mortgages from banks. Last week, he persuaded Trump about the allure of a 50-year mortgage as a way to increase home buying and building – a proposal that was widely criticized because it would drastically increase the overall price of a loan.

Pulte also has focused on large home construction companies, which have drawn Trump’s ire. Pulte requested confidential Fannie Mae data and has publicly signaled that he is considering a crackdown if the companies do not increase construction volume.

“I’m looking at the Fannie Mae builder data and with the top three homebuilders we buy EASILY over $20 billion in THEIR LOANS!” he posted to X in early October.

In a brief statement, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which Pulte leads, did not address questions from the AP, but said the agency “requires its regulated entities to carry out their operations in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.”

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Who Really Owns America? The Banks, The Billionaires, & The Deep State

“The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear… They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying. Lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else… It’s called the American Dream, ‘cause you have to be asleep to believe it.”

– George Carlin

As President Trump floats the idea of 50-year mortgages, Americans are being sold a new version of the American Dream—one that can never truly be owned, only leased from the banks, billionaires, and private equity landlords who profit from our permanent state of debt.

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Florida Probes JPMorgan Over Truth Social Debanking

Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier has opened a major investigation into JPMorgan Chase after disclosures that the bank severed ties with Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), the company behind the free speech social media platform Truth Social, and may have shared sensitive data with the Biden administration’s Justice Department as part of the “Arctic Frost” investigation.

In a formal notice, Uthmeier stated that JPMorgan’s conduct “may implicate numerous Florida criminal and civil antifraud laws and de-banking prohibitions,” and directed the bank to preserve all documents and communications related to the matter.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

The Arctic Frost probe was initially presented as a limited inquiry into President Donald Trump’s activities following the 2020 election.

It has since expanded into a wide-reaching operation involving numerous Republican lawmakers, conservative groups, and individuals.

Reports indicate that federal agents issued secret subpoenas to financial institutions and technology companies, demanding extensive amounts of private and financial information.

JPMorgan’s involvement came to light when Devin Nunes, CEO of Truth Social and Chair of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, appeared on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo on November 9. During the interview, Nunes revealed that JPMorgan had “inexplicably debanked” TMTG as the company was preparing to go public in early 2024.

He suggested that the timing was connected to the Justice Department’s broad subpoena requests and criticized both the bank and federal officials for what he described as politically motivated actions that may have violated the law.

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J.P. Morgan Quietly Helped Jack Smith Target Trump Media

The weaponization of federal power has reached a new level. 

In a shocking revelation, Special Counsel Jack Smith secretly subpoenaed J.P. Morgan Chase for the private banking records of Trump Media and Technology Group—despite the company not existing at the time of January 6. 

The move, uncovered by Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes, represents yet another case of the Justice Department extending its political reach far beyond reason or legality.

Trump Media became a public company in 2024, years after the events that Smith’s investigation supposedly focused on. 

Yet, Smith’s “Arctic Frost” operation went after Truth Social’s bank records as though it were somehow connected to the Capitol protests. 

That alone raises the question: what possible justification could exist for subpoenaing a company that didn’t exist at the time of the alleged crime? 

None—unless the motive was political.

As Nunes explained in his interview with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, the subpoena was not only unjustified but also secret. 

Trump Media was never notified. Even more concerning, J.P. Morgan Chase—one of the largest banks in the world—complied without question. 

For a company headquartered in Florida, such cooperation with an unfounded federal demand may have violated both state and federal laws. Yet the bank went further.

At the height of Trump Media’s public offering in early 2024—just as Truth Social was preparing to go public and raise $250 million—J.P. Morgan abruptly “debanked” the company. 

That decision, coming amid active cooperation with the Biden Department of Justice, effectively sabotaged a major free speech enterprise. 

It was a clear act of corporate compliance with political intimidation.

J.P. Morgan later told Fox News that it does not close accounts for political reasons.

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Unbanked In A Connected World

Financial exclusion remains high in many parts of the world. In several countries, more than two out of three adults are unbanked, yet the majority own a mobile phone. This contrast between connectivity and financial access highlights both the persistent gaps in global inclusion and the massive opportunity to close them.

Created in partnership with Plasma, this graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Jenna Ross, shows how ownership of financial accounts and mobile phones compares across countries. It’s part of our Money 2.0 series, where we highlight how finance is evolving into its next era.

The Unbanked Gap

In low- and middle-income economies, 84% of adults own a mobile phone, while 75% of people have financial accounts. This gap is much wider in some countries, especially in Africa and the Middle East.

For the most unbanked countries worldwide, here are the percentages of adults who own a financial account and those who own a mobile phone.

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When A Train Wreck Is No Accident

“In spite of all the rhetoric, we will go deeper in debt, the Fed will print more money, and the value of the dollar will continue to plummet.”

– Ron Paul

Never in history have the economic and political structures been so manipulated by those who are responsible for their safekeeping; never has so much been at stake, in so many countries, and facing collapse, all at the same time.

The great majority of people in the First World recognise that the world is passing through an economic crisis. However, most are under the impression that there are some pretty smart fellows running the show and all they need to do is tweak the system a bit more and we’ll return to happy days.

Not so. The “smart fellows” who are in charge of fixing the problem are in fact the very same people who created it.

Understandably, this a hard concept for most people to even consider, let alone accept, as the very idea that those in charge of the system might consciously collapse it seems preposterous. So, we might wish to back up a bit here and present a very brief history of the system itself, in order to understand that the eventual collapse of the economic system was baked in the cake from the very beginning.

Creating a Central Bank

From the very earliest days of the formation of the American republic, bankers (along with inside help from George Washington’s secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton) sought to create a banking monopoly that would create the country’s currency and become the central banking system.

The first attempt at a central bank was a failure, and strong opponents, including Thomas Jefferson, prevented a second central bank for a time. Later, further attempts were made by bankers and their political cronies, and each central bank was either short-lived or defeated in its planning stages.

Then, in 1913, the heads of the largest banks met clandestinely on Jekyll Island, Georgia, to make another try. Having recently lost yet another bid to create a central bank, due to the public’s understandable concern that the big bankers were already too powerful, a new spin was placed on the idea. This time, they decided to present the idea as a government body that would be decentralised and would have the responsibility of restricting the power of the banks.

However, the new bill was in fact the same old bill, with a new title and some minor changes in wording. But this time, it would be presented by the new president, who was a liberal.

The president, Woodrow Wilson, had in fact been handpicked by the banks. The banks then scuttled their own conservative party’s candidate, got the Democrat Wilson elected, then installed a secretary of the Treasury whose job it would be to ensure that the Federal Reserve was created.

The bill was widely supported by the public, even though, in truth, it was not a federal agency, but a privately owned conglomerate, controlled by the banks. Neither was it a reserve. It was never intended to store money; it was intended to give the biggest bankers control of the economy. They followed the central principle of uber-banker Mayer Rothschild: “Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes the laws.”

From the start, the new institution peddled itself as the protector of the people’s interests, but it was quite the opposite. Its purpose from its inception was to control the economy and the government by controlling the issuance of the currency. In addition, it was to be a system of taxation.

Typically, a population accepts a certain amount of direct taxation but has its limits of tolerance. Yet, the bankers understood that a less direct method of taxation was infinitely more profitable and infinitely safer from criticism.

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JPMorgan Discloses Government Probe Into Debanking Practices

US regulators are examining whether JPMorgan Chase has denied customers fair access to banking, as pressure grows over debanking decisions that were made against conservative figures, according to reporting from Financial Times and the company’s 10-Q filing.

In its quarterly filing, the bank noted it was “responding to requests from government authorities and other external parties regarding, among other things, the firm’s policies and processes and the provision of services to customers and potential customers”.

JPMorgan linked the scrutiny to an August executive order from Donald Trump directing regulators to review possible “politicised or unlawful debanking”. The bank said related inquiries include “reviews, investigations and legal proceedings,” without identifying the agencies involved.

Bank of America has similarly reported responding to government demands about “fair access to banking.” Industry lobbyists argue that regulatory rules around politically exposed persons and “reputation risk” have pushed banks to deny certain customers.

Recall, just yesterday, we noted that a top bank watchdog was making sure big banks have finally ditched debanking policies. You remember those, right? We sure do. It happened around the same time Google, Paypal and Amazon all banned us due to our (correct) take on the origins of Covid-19 and because they didn’t like our (correct) take on the BLM movement.

For those that missed it, a slew of banks under the Biden administration outright cancelled people’s accounts and didn’t allow them access to a bank account based on the industry they worked in, or many times their political views (surprise, none of them were Democrats).

Jonathan Gould, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or OCC, told a conference that supervisors are double-checking banks really did stop blacklisting sectors like firearms from banks, according to Reuters.

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White House agrees to cancel student debt for millions of borrowers

The Trump administration says it is canceling student debt for millions of borrowers — a pivot from its previous moves to block some loan forgiveness plans.

In an agreement with the American Federation of Teachers, the White House will again start processing student loan forgiveness for eligible borrowers in two income-driven repayment plans — Income-Contingent Repayment and Pay as You Earn — until they expire.

President Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” is slated to phase out those two programs by July 1, 2028. They have over 2.5 million enrollees total, a higher ed expert estimated.

“This is a tremendous win for borrowers. With today’s filing, borrowers can rest a little easier,” said Winston Berkman-Breen, legal director for Protect Borrowers, which acted as counsel for the teachers’ union.

“The US Department of Education has agreed to follow the law and deliver congressionally mandated affordable payments and debt relief to hard-working public service workers across the country, and will do so under court supervision. We fully intend to hold them to their word.”

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The Hidden Risks of the Digital Euro

The European Central Bank has presented the digital euro as a symbol of financial autonomy and modernization. But, much like the Chinese model that seems to inspire ECB President Christine Lagarde, what is at stake is not just technology: it is the risk of turning a payment instrument into a mechanism of control over every citizen’s transactions. Across the Atlantic, the United States took the opposite path: it legalized stablecoins and banned a centralized digital dollar, strengthening freedom and competition instead of state control.

On September 26, the European Central Bank announced what had long been anticipated: it will conduct new experiments on what can be achieved with the digital euro.

This project, presented as an achievement of financial autonomy, has now been accelerated after the United States Congress approved the so-called GENIUS (“Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins”) Act, which authorizes stablecoins currencies pegged to stable assets, usually the dollar. At the same time, Congress also approved a prohibition on the Federal Reserve from creating an official digital dollar, ensuring that innovation remains decentralized and outside the direct control of the State.

In Brussels, the reaction was the opposite. The fear that these dollar-linked digital currencies could trigger a “digital dollarization” of the European economy served as justification to accelerate the digital euro. But instead of strengthening the diversity of existing solutions, the European Union is moving forward with a project directly controlled by the ECB. The narrative is one of “financial sovereignty,” but in practice it risks increasing citizens’ dependence on central power and undermines competition in the financial sector, especially when the Chinese model appears to serve as reference.

The ECB insists that the digital euro will be just another payment option, coexisting with cash. But President Lagarde has repeatedly praised the Chinese model, which looks very much like a declaration of intent. Even if it begins with promises of voluntarism, the reality is that models of this kind rarely remain optional for long. China’s case is illustrative: the digital yuan was presented as a complement to physical cash and a voluntary choice, but it quickly became a mass-use instrument, encouraged by the State and integrated into nearly all daily transactions.

In 2023, in cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen, public salaries and subsidies were being paid through the digital yuan. After the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, its use expanded to such an extent that it became virtually impossible to avoid. In just five years, the digital yuan became unavoidable in many Chinese cities, with public wages, subsidies, and taxes processed exclusively this way.

By recording in real time all transactions through the People’s Bank of China, the government monitors in detail who buys, what, where, and when. This level of surveillance opens the door to direct conditioning of citizens’ behavior. Features such as “programmable money,” with an expiration date that forces people to spend within a certain timeframe instead of saving, have already been tested.

Added to this is the risk of social exclusion: those who do not join the system or lack access to the necessary digital tools are, in practice, shut out from a growing part of the economy. State incentives make adhesion inevitable if public salaries, subsidies, and even transport are processed via digital money; the space for private alternatives shrinks progressively.

In such a model, financial freedom ceases to exist: every payment ultimately depends on state approval.

Although official EU platforms highlight numerous advantages of the digital euro, such as lower cost payments, privacy protected by European law, and structures to prevent cyberattacks. One unavoidable question remains: Why is this system necessary at all? At present, the private sector offers multiple secure and reliable digital payment options.

Since the market already provides safe and efficient alternatives, the only possible incentive to develop this system lies in control through the centralization of power, at the expense of privacy while weakening the private banking system. In essence, the digital euro is not a technological advance, but a serious step backward in terms of freedom and privacy.

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