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(NEW YORK) — The House Oversight Committee is set to depose Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime accountant on Wednesday, potentially shedding light on how the disgraced financier was able to manage his multimillion-dollar fortune.

Richard Kahn served as Epstein’s accountant for over a decade, and some of Epstein’s victims allege he played an instrumental role in creating the “complex financial infrastructure” that enabled the financier’s crimes.

Kahn has consistently denied any wrongdoing and says he was unaware of Epstein’s crimes while serving as his accountant. The closed-door deposition — a recording of which is expected to be released by the committee — could provide a rare window into how Epstein paid for his lavish lifestyle and funneled thousands of dollars to his victims.

While some of the recent witnesses deposed by the House Oversight Committee — including Bill and Hillary Clinton and retail billionaire Leslie Wexner — have drawn immense publicity, the interviews have largely left unchanged the public’s understanding of Epstein’s life and crimes.

By turning to Epstein’s former inner circle with Kahn and his longtime lawyer Darren Indyke — who is set to be deposed next week — the congressional investigation could offer a broader window into Epstein’s life, legal troubles and the complex web of bank accounts and shell companies that comprised his fortune.

Kahn began working as Epstein’s in-house accountant in the mid-2000s and worked for Epstein until his death in 2019. Kahn and Indyke served as the co-executors of his will, and Epstein planned to give Kahn $25 million, according to documents released by the Department of Justice earlier this year.

Following Epstein’s death, his estate was valued as much as $650 million, though the fortune has decreased over the last decade as the estate has paid out multiple settlements to Epstein’s victims.

Last month, Kahn and Indyke agreed to settle one of the last class-action lawsuits filed by victims of Epstein for at least $25 million without an admission of wrongdoing. The estate was last valued at approximately $127 million, according to a court filing last October.

The class action complaint alleged that both men were “personally essential” for Epstein by helping structure his back accounts, managing cash withdrawals, and creating a complex financial infrastructure “created to simply facilitate the illegal sex-trafficking venture.” The lawsuit also alleged that the men helped Epstein facilitate at least three “sham marriages” to obtain immigration status for Epstein’s victims.

“Knowing that they would earn millions of dollars in exchange for facilitating Epstein’s sex abuse and trafficking, Indyke and Kahn chose money and power over following the law,” the complaint said.

The settlement did not include an admission of wrongdoing and still needs to be approved by a federal judge. While both men were named as defendants in the case, the settlement will also be paid through Epstein’s trust, rather than by them directly.

“Neither of the co-executors has made any admission or concession of misconduct,” said Dan Weiner, an attorney for both men said in a statement to ABC News last month. “That is not surprising — not a single woman has ever accused either man of committing sexual abuse or witnessing sexual abuse, nor claimed at any time that she reported to them any allegation of Mr. Epstein’s abuse.”

Lawmakers last year began increasing their scrutiny of both Kahn and Indyke following a report in the Wall Street Journal that both men were never questioned by law enforcement investigating Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

“In light of the work Indyke and Kahn performed for Epstein and the outsize role they played in his personal and financial affairs; it is inexcusable that the DOJ and the FBI never questioned these individuals in connection with investigations into Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell,” a group of five Democratic Senators wrote in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel last year. “A failure of this magnitude cannot be attributed to simple oversight or misunderstanding, and it is incumbent on Congress to understand why such a failure occurred.”

Documents released earlier this year offered some new details about Kahn’s role, managing expenses for Epstein and serving in roles in some of the companies that comprised the complex web of Epstein’s finances. According to a 2020 lawsuit against the Epstein estate filed by the U.S. Virgin Islands government, Epstein paid Kahn more than $10 million dollars between 2011 and 2019 for his services.

Ahead of the deposition, Daniel Ruzumna, an attorney for Kahn, declined to comment.

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(WASHINGTON) — Senators at last agreed via voice vote early Friday morning to approve a funding package that funds the Department of Homeland Security besides Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and part of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) — a critical step toward ending most of the 42-day long DHS shutdown.

Agencies that would be funded by the Senate’s approved package include TSA, FEMA, The Coast Guard and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

The vote was called by Sen. Bernie Moreno, who was presiding over the chamber just after 2 a.m. ET on Friday morning. The bill will now head to the House where it will need to be approved. If passed, it will then head to the desk of President Donald Trump who would need to sign it for it to become law.

In remarks on the Senate floor early Friday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said he was proud of Democrats who “held the line” on their objection to funding ICE and CBP without reforms.

“Democrats held firm in our position that Donald Trump’s rogue and deadly militia should not get more funding without serious reforms and we will continue to fight for those reforms,” Schumer said.
The package the Senate approved does not include funding for ICE and parts of CBP, though those agencies will continue to receive funds due to the influx of cash in the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill.

Also absent from the package are any of the reforms to ICE’s operating procedures that Democrats have been repeatedly demanding since the debate over DHS funding began.

Majority Leader John Thune lambasted Democrats on the floor for what he framed as their refusal to negotiate in good faith. He said Democrats could have secured some of their desired reforms if they hadn’t complicated negotiations.

“We could be standing here right now passing a funding bill with a list of reforms if the Democrats had made the smallest effort to actually reach an agreement. But they didn’t, because it’s now clear to everyone, Democrats didn’t actually want a solution, they wanted an issue, politics over policy, self-interest over reform, pandering to their base over actually solving a problem,” Thune said. “It’s an appalling commentary on the state of the Democratic Party.”

Schumer was asked by reporters about how Democrats would get reforms from this point going forward.

“We’re going to continue to fight hard for reforms, there’ll be opportunities,” Schumer said, though he provided no detail.

Though there was an effort by Republicans tonight to unanimously pass annual funding for ICE, it was blocked by Democrats.

Republicans are vowing to work on a package later this year to approve even more funding for ICE and CBP, saying they aim to do it using reconciliation — a budget tool that, if successful, would allow them to sidestep Democratic objection and pass the bill without any Democratic support.

Republicans are already warning that that bill will be a much harsher and Sen. Eric Schmitt vowed it would “supercharge deportations.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Former President Bill Clinton is set to give a closed-door deposition to the House Oversight Committee on Friday as part of its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein in Chappaqua, New York.

The former president’s testimony comes a day after the Republican-led committee questioned former secretary of state and first lady Hillary Clinton over the couple’s dealings with the convicted sex offender.

In her deposition Thursday, Hillary Clinton said she did not know Epstein, could not recall ever encountering him and never visited him on his island or at his home or office.

Hillary Clinton said after her deposition that the committee asked her over and over if she knew Epstein and there were questions that were off subject — about UFOs and the debunked “Pizzagate” conspiracy.

“So if they are going to fulfill their responsibilities to literally investigate the investigations, which is what they originally said was the scope of their work, I think they could have spent the day more productively,” she said.

Neither Bill Clinton nor Hillary Clinton has been accused of wrongdoing and both deny having any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.

No Epstein survivor or associate has ever made a public allegation of wrongdoing or inappropriate behavior by the former president or his wife in connection with his prior relationship with Epstein.

“No one is accusing, at this moment, the Clintons of any wrongdoing,” Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said Thursday morning ahead of Hillary Clinton’s deposition. “They’re going to have due process, but we have a lot of questions, and the purpose of the whole investigation is to try to understand many things about Epstein.”

Bill Clinton’s association with Epstein was first noted publicly in 2002 after reporters learned of the former president’s flight that year on Epstein’s jet for a humanitarian mission to multiple African nations.

Bill Clinton told New York Magazine through a spokesperson at the time that “Jeffrey is both a highly successful financier and a committed philanthropist with a keen sense of global markets and an in-depth knowledge of 21st century science.”

Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s co-conspirator who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking and other crimes said in a recorded interview last year with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, that it was she, not Epstein, who had a friendship with Bill Clinton, and that she was the one who suggested and organized his trips on Epstein’s aircraft.

The Clintons were subpoenaed to appear under oath in front of the committee for a deposition in January, but failed to comply, arguing the subpoenas were without legal merit. Rather, they proposed a four-hour transcribed interview instead. 

David Kendall, the Clintons’ lawyer, argued that the couple has no information relevant to the committee’s investigation of the federal government’s handling of investigations into Epstein and Maxwell, and should not be required to appear for in-person testimony.

Kendall contended the Clintons should be permitted to provide the limited information they have to the committee in writing.

Comer had long threatened to hold the Clintons in contempt if they failed to appear before the committee, so when they didn’t, a contempt resolution was drafted and put to a vote.

The Oversight Committee passed the contempt resolution with nine Democrats voting in favor of it, teeing it up for a full House vote. 

At the last minute, just before the resolution was to be voted on in the House, the Clintons agreed to sit for a deposition, postponing further consideration of a contempt vote.

Democrats on the committee said they hope this week’s testimony from the Clintons spark Republican committee members to investigate more of Epstein’s ties to President Donald Trump. 

Trump has repeatedly denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and has said that he cut off contact with his former friend more than 20 years ago.

While the Clintons have agreed to speak with the committee behind closed doors, they have still pushed for public hearings as part of the committee’s investigation. 

“I will not sit idly as they use me as a prop in a closed-door kangaroo court by a Republican Party running scared,” Bill Clinton wrote in a lengthy post on X. “If they want answers, let’s stop the games & do this the right way: in a public hearing, where the American people can see for themselves what this is really about.”

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