Longtime Epstein accountant testifies behind closed doors for roughly 7 hours in House Oversight probe

By Annie Grayer, Em Steck, CNN

(CNN) — Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime accountant testified his relationship with the late convicted sex offender “was strictly on a professional level,” as he faced investigators on Capitol Hill for roughly seven hours as part of the House Oversight Committee’s probe.

Richard Kahn told lawmakers behind closed doors that he was unaware of the “terrible and unforgivable things that he [Epstein] did to women and girls” during the deposition with Republicans and Democrats on the panel.

The committee on Wednesday sought answers on how Epstein made his money, how he spent it and whether it was used for any illegal activities. The congressional investigators dug into Epstein’s finances for months ahead of the interview through subpoenas to banks and visits to the Treasury Department.

“We did not interact socially and I never attended any of his parties of his social functions. While Epstein was alive, I never observed any sexual abuse or trafficking of women and never received a complaint – either by one of Epstein’s victims or any one else – of such abuse or trafficking,” Kahn said in his opening statement, obtained by CNN.

Kahn testified that had he “learned of any of his horrific behavior, I would have quit work immediately.”

Addressing his accounting work, Kahn said he never saw any financial transactions that were red flags for abuse and trafficking or that Epstein was acting unlawfully. He also pushed back on allegations that he helped structure or set up Epstein’s companies to conceal criminal activity or payments to young women.

“We tracked the expenditures as meticulously as possible, including gifts by Epstein to women and men. The gifts represent a very small fraction of Epstein’s spending,” Kahn said. “I did not see them as red flags for abuse or trafficking.”

He told lawmakers he had “no role in setting up any of Epstein’s companies” nor did he view them as “improper or suspicious,” according to the prepared remarks.

House Oversight Chair James Comer said during a break in Kahn’s appearance that he was “answering every question thus far.”

That testimony included mention of a foreign head of state as having financial transactions with Epstein, according to Democratic Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, who did not elaborate on the testimony. A person familiar with the matter said Kahn testified that Epstein had investments with Ehud Barak or one of the former Israeli prime minister’s entities, though he was unable to recall details about them.

Kahn, Subramanyam said, also testified that “another person who was an accuser of President Donald Trump was given a settlement by Jeffrey Epstein’s estate.” When pressed by CNN, Subramanyam would not share specifics about the accuser or the settlement reached.

Comer, however, told reporters that Kahn testified he never saw any type of transaction paid to Trump or his family. And the person familiar said Trump was not listed among the four men who victims requested be carved out of settlement agreements to allow them to file future litigation.

Trump has consistently denied wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.

Comer had said ahead of the hearing that he had wanted to know whether Kahn was involved in creating any settlements for victims.

The Kentucky Republican said that Kahn told committee investigators that the five clients who paid Epstein the most were Les Wexner, Glenn Dubin, Steven Sinofsky, the Rothschilds and Leon Black. Wexner has already been deposed by the committee, and the panel has asked Black to appear voluntarily on May 13.

“What Kahn has said is he was under the impression that Epstein made his money as a tax adviser and a financial planner. So, these were the five people that transferred significant sums of money to Epstein,” Comer said.

Ahead of the deposition, Comer said that lawmakers had many questions for Kahn, who is also a co-executor of Epstein’s estate.

“We’ve been getting bank records in for a long time, and we haven’t talked publicly about them because we were waiting to bring the accountant in once we got a feel on where the money we think was going and where it was coming from,” he said.

In November, Comer subpoenaed JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank for their records on Epstein and since then, his panel has reviewed approximately 44,000 financial documents and counting, a committee aide told CNN.

Epstein had at least 64 trusts and entities associated with him and there were large amounts of money being moved each day between Epstein’s entities and his associates, the aide added. Some of those activities included payments to women, tuition to various universities and routine large cash withdrawals for unknown purposes, according to the aide.

Committee staff have also gone to the Treasury Department to view the suspicious activity reports – a type of confidential report financial institutions file to flag potentially nefarious activity but that do not necessarily indicate wrongdoing — related to Epstein.

A month after Epstein died in a jail cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, JPMorgan Chase reported to US authorities more than $1 billion in transactions it viewed as suspicious from October 2003 until July 2019, according to court records. The transactions included Wall Street titans, numerous related companies, his former lawyer and others. Two accounts included in the report were linked to Russian banks Alfa Bank and Sberbank.

Though Kahn appeared to be engaging with congressional investigators Wednesday, not all were satisfied with his responses.

Democratic Rep. James Walkinshaw told reporters he did not find Kahn’s testimony that he had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes credible.

“Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking ring would not have been possible without Richard Kahn, who managed Epstein’s money for years, authorized payments, including payments to victims and survivors. And today we’ve heard from Mr. Kahn a lot of inability to recall, inability to recall emails, messages, activities he was involved in,” Walkinshaw said.

“I do not find it credible that he had no knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes. If he was ignorant of Epstein’s crimes, he was willfully ignorant of those crimes given the depth of his involvement with Epstein and his finances over many years,” he added.

Comer said he hopes he can finish his investigation by the end of this Congress but mentioned that each time they interview a witness, new leads emerge.

Last week, the panel moved in a bipartisan vote to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi, but it has not yet been sent to her. Comer said Wednesday he hopes to depose her “very soon.”

This headline and story have been updated with additional developments.

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