Bloomberg

07/31/2025

A key Senate Democrat broadened his attack on the Trump administration’s handling of records about the financing of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking network, urging the Internal Revenue Service to investigate his tax and estate planning work for private equity titan Leon Black.

Ron Wyden, the Senate Finance Committee’s top Democrat, wrote Thursday to IRS Commissioner Billy Long to question why the agency had not audited at least $158 million in payments that Black made to Epstein between 2012 and 2017 for complex tax-related transactions. A spokesman for Black denied that he engaged in wrongdoing.

“It is unthinkable that transactions amounting to tens of millions of dollars paid to a known criminal for the purpose of helping a mega-wealthy individual dodge billions in taxes were never audited or investigated,” wrote Wyden, an Oregon Democrat. “When Americans think the system is rigged, this is the kind of abuse they think about.”

Wyden is accelerating his attack on President Donald Trump’s Treasury Department for failing to release any information about more than $1.5 billion in Epstein transactions that flowed through several US and Russian banks. His criticism comes amid widespread pressure for the Justice Department to release criminal records about the investigations of Epstein, who died in prison as he faced sex-trafficking charges, and Ghislaine Maxwell, his longtime associate who is serving a 20-year prison term.