Wall Street Ties Raise Questions for Prosecutors Overseeing Epstein-Linked Matters (3/17/26)

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What's up everyone and welcome to another episode of the Epstein Chronicles.

One of the biggest FUs that we see when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein and the so-called investigations into Jeffrey Epstein and his associates

are these internal investigations that are led by Jeffrey Epstein's friends.

And when it comes to the SDNY and the man that leads the SDNY Jay Clayton,

could the conflict of interest be any more apparent?

Let us recall that before taking this job at the SDNY,

this dude was working for Apollo Global.

You know, Leon Blacks company.

And he was very close and is very close to a lot of the people that were in that world.

So this is the guy that we're going to have investigate these people.

It doesn't really inspire much confidence in what's going on.

And when you have a situation that is just rife with all kinds of corruption as it is,

the last thing you want to do as an institution is add to the problem.

But when it comes to this DOJ and this administration, they don't care.

And that's because they really believe that they're going to make this go away.

That's what they think.

But they're wrong.

Today we have an article from the Jacobin and the headline,

the Epstein class investigates itself.

This article was authored by Freddie Brewster.

The investment portfolio of the interim US attorney for the Southern District of New York

shows financial stakes in Epstein's associated financial institutions and Venezuelan oil interests.

The Trump appointee stands to win big from his own investigations.

Like on what planet is that okay?

And since when is that something that is acceptable in America?

J Clayton, a top federal prosecutor leading investigations into sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein,

Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro, and major Wall Street banks,

holds more than 1.6 million in investments in companies with a potential financial stake in those same matters,

according to ethics disclosures reviewed by the lever.

Well, it's obvious that there's a problem here,

but it's not going to be addressed just like the rest of this stuff they don't care.

There is nothing that's going to force their hand, so they're just going to roll with it.

And especially right now with their shiny new object that everybody's focusing on,

which is the war in Iran, they're going to keep going as far as they can with the Epstein cover up.

And what did the Clintons used to say?

Never let a good crisis go to waste, right?

So there's no doubt that the Trump administration is going to use what's going on in Iran to help cover up what's happening here.

Clayton, president, Trump's pick to run the Justice Department's top dog Southern District of New York office,

own stake in multiple oil and gas companies that stand to benefit from Venezuela's regime change,

as well as Wall Street banks and financial firms currently under investigation by Congress over their ties to Epstein.

And this is the guy leading the dance.

I'm sure that really inspires a lot of confidence in everybody out there.

I know it doesn't me.

You know that Jay Clayton's going to do the right thing.

He's never going to bend and try and help his buddies.

He's never going to try and help his boss, Donald Trump, right?

That wouldn't be ethical.

And everybody in this administration is above and beyond reproach, right?

How dare you criticize anybody in the most transparent administration of all time?

The disclosure show Clayton has more than one million in financial holdings and private equity giant Apollo global management,

where he served as board chairman until his Justice Department appointment.

And that right there should set off all kinds of alarm bells.

And if you were wondering how somebody like Leon Black has avoided real trouble here, this is how?

When everybody that's in control of the DOJ and the government is your friend or your buddy or a fellow traveler,

you're going to get hooked up.

And let's not forget that Ben Black is part of the administration Leon Black son.

Jay Clayton has a very personal interest in seeing the Epstein story as a cab and off story involving mysterious who could have ever known it villain,

rather than the story of Interconnected a moral elites.

It appears to be two impartial people said Jeff Hauser executive director of the government watchdog group revolving door project.

And I don't think I've met one single person regular person who doesn't see what's going on here.

And doesn't see just how screwed up things really are behind the scenes when it comes to the so called Masters of the Universe.

Because even if you don't believe that this was some vast human trafficking enterprise, how can you deny the rest of it?

How can you deny the stuff with a paper trail? How can you deny the obvious corruption?

Well, if you're a serious person, you can't because it all goes hand in hand.

And when you start to get a lay of the land, it looks like all these people were put in place for that specific reason, right?

The loyal soldiers, Todd Blanche, Jay Clayton, Pam Bondi, Cash Patel, all people that are going to play ball with what the administration wants them to do.

And not only that, but rally around those decisions like they're the right decisions to make when anybody who's not being biased and is taking a neutral approach,

understands that what they're doing is just furthering the cover up.

That's a really paralyzing bias to bring to the role of prosecutor, how's her added?

We should want professional skeptics to serve our prosecutors, not the credulous, and I think that's correct too.

Why do we have to have all your buddies everywhere in the government? Isn't that just a form of DEI?

It's really what it comes down to. Are you really going to try and tell me that Jay Clayton is the most qualified person for that position in the whole country, or that Todd Babybilly Blanches, or that Pam Bondi is, or that Cash Patel is?

We all know the answer to that, and the answer is no.

Clayton, a former corporate attorney with no prosecutorial experience and Trump's former securities and exchange commission chair, served as chairman of Apollo's Board of Directors from 2021 until April of 2025, when Trump selected him to be interim US attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Clayton was never confirmed to the position by the Senate, but in a rare move, a panel of judges appointed him to the position until a Senate confirmation candidate can take over. Oh, isn't that nice? It's just such a joke.

Like, it's honestly a joke. The whole entire thing that we're seeing here, play out in front of us. The political theater surrounding this is so disgusting that it's almost hard to put it into words.

Seven months after Clayton assumed his justice department position amid a public pressure campaign urging the justice department to release the so-called Epstein files, US attorney general Pam Bondi, tasked him with investigating people and institutions tied to Epstein.

According to Trump, that list should include former president Bill Clinton, former Obama administration advisor Larry Summers, billionaire tech founder, and Democratic party funder Reid Hoffman, and Wall Street bank JP Morgan Chase.

Funny, leaves out Leon Black, leaves out Jess Staley, leaves out all of his buddies, leaves out himself, but everybody else, who is his enemy? Well, they should all be targeted.

What kind of moron talks like that? I mean, even if you have a case that's being built and you're talking like that, you're gonna end up getting that case thrown out.

Imagine if a lawyer was talking like this, a prosecutor? I mean, the defense team would be filing motions the second the words came out of their mouth.

And if any kind of investigations ever initiated against any of those people, they're gonna claim that they're being targeted and it'll just get thrown out anyway.

But the truth is, there was never gonna be any kind of investigation and anybody Democrats or otherwise. So Donald Trump would just shoot in his mouth off like usual.

Clayton has also been assigned to spearhead the redactions of victims, personally identifiable information, in the trove of Epstein investigation records, the Justice Department began releasing on January 30.

The process has proved to be a debacle due to failures that left email addresses and nude photos of potential victims unredacted.

Plus the name of a victim and another high profile sex trafficking case recently prosecuted by Clayton's office. The SDNY is like Monty Python meets Reno911.

Talk about a bunch of morons. Who's running this shit the trailer park boys?

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On January 3rd, the Justice Department released its indictment against Maduro, which included Clayton signature.

That indictment has drawn criticism after the Justice Department dropped certain claims and revised portions after submitting it to the court.

The indictment alleges that for more than 20 years, Maduro led a narco terrorism ring that imported tons of cocaine into the United States.

Clayton is the top federal prosecutor overseeing the government's case.

Well, at the time when they were trying to say it was about fentanyl, that was obviously a bunch of bullshit.

The vast majority of fentanyl or precursor that comes into the country is coming in through Mexico.

Now cocaine, no doubt, certainly coming from Venezuela. It's a transit point.

But when we're talking about fentanyl,

Venezuela had nothing to do with fentanyl whatsoever.

So that was an obvious lie. If they would have just said cocaine, okay, cool, believable, still stupid, but believable.

And of course, you're going to see that reflected in the indictment.

And I'm sure that it's going to be superseded a couple of more times before Maduro ends up going to trial.

According to the Office of Government Ethics Disclosures Clayton still maintains significant investments in many of the companies involved in his office's work.

That includes between $1.5 million and $6 million worth of Apollo holdings between $15,000 and $50,000 in JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America stock,

and between $1,000 and $15,000 in Bank of New York, Mellon and city group stock.

The Justice Department has not announced any criminal prosecutions of banks tied to Epstein, but Congress is investigating $1.5 billion in suspicious financial transactions tied to Epstein's sex trafficking crimes.

And it's co-conspirators that allegedly flowed through Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, Bank of America and Bank of New York, Mellon.

Citibank is among the institution senators have called on the Treasury Department to investigate over suspicious activities relating to Jeffrey Epstein and his associates.

What's more, Clayton holds between $19,000 and $110,000 in Chevron, Conoco Phillips, Exxon Mobile, Phillips 66, and Valero Energy Stock, oil companies with a potential financial stake in Venezuela's future oil production.

He also loans between $50,000 and $100,000 worth of stock in the holding company Berkshire Hathaway, which also stands to gain from Venezuela's oil production, thanks to its 6% stake in Chevron.

Clayton's portfolio also includes between $1,000,000 and $5,000,000 in unvested American Express stock,

between $100,000 and $250,000 in Google Parent Company Alphabet Stock, and between $100,000 and $250,000 in Amazon Stock, among other holdings.

Federal Ethics and Conflict of Interest Rules, which apply to Justice Department employees for our prosecutors from taking official action in a particular matter involving any entity in which you, or someone whose interests are imputed to you, have a financial interest.

So Clayton should just recuse himself from all of this. In fact, he should go back to being a corporate lawyer. He is in over his head.

1,000% over his head. Those rules also bar prosecutors from participating in cases involving any person for whom you have served, within the last year as officer, director, trustee, general partner, agent, attorney, consultant, contractor, or employee.

The Justice Department declined to comment on whether Clayton plans to recuse himself from Epstein or Venezuela related matters. No way. He was put here for this reason. He is not going to recuse himself.

Well, you think this DOJ has honor?

During his time at Apollo, Clayton helped steer the company through a public relations quagmire regarding Apollo's co-founder and former CEO, Leon Black, and his personal and business connections to Epstein.

Apollo appointed Clayton, chairman after Black resigned from the position in March of 2021 amid scrutiny over his Epstein ties and sexual harassment allegations made against him.

Several, but not all, of the related suits have been dropped, and Black has denied the allegations. Yeah, well, good luck denying those.

Good luck, Leon Black. Because from what I've seen, from those court filings, sure is a lot of smoke there.

In January 2021, regulatory filing, Apollo disclosed an internal investigation into Black and the firm's relationship with Epstein, as well as the letter Black Issue to investors, both of which stated Apollo had no formal business ties to Epstein, and that only Black himself consulted with Epstein on business related issues, as if Black wasn't Apollo and Apollo wasn't Black.

You can't separate the two. Now they'll say you can, but you can't. I'm sorry, it doesn't work that way.

Due to the new Epstein files revelations, Apollo's claims are now facing legal scrutiny in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Clayton's jurisdiction.

While his office is not directly involved in the case, the matter could put pressure on him to include his former employer among the people and institutions tied to Epstein that he's charged with investigating.

A January 30 Epstein files release contained documents detailing multiple emails between Epstein, Colonel Apollo CEO Mark Rowan, and other Apollo executives between 2013 and March 2016, long after Epstein had been convicted of soliciting a minor.

And again, this is where the timelines come in, right? There's no excuse here. And Mark Rowan should be embarrassed.

He came out and said he had no contact with Epstein, there were in friends, blah, blah, blah, another lie.

In response to a group of Apollo shareholders filed a lawsuit on March 2nd in the Southern District of New York alleging that Apollo, Black and Rowan, were directly or indirectly involved in drafting, producing, reviewing, or disseminating the false and misleading statements, and information that was submitted to shareholders

in the 2021 regulatory filing. Yeah, they lied. 1000% without a doubt. And the crazy thing is there's all kinds of teachers unions and different funds that are being managed by Apollo global.

So this is just the beginning of the trouble for them.

Additionally, two major teachers unions are urging the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate what they call misleading claims made in the regulatory filing.

Were troubled by Apollo's seeming inability to be forthcoming about the extent to which Epstein was a personal, social, and professional associate of the firm and its partners.

The American Federation of Teachers and the American Association of University Professors wrote a letter to the commission, well, that's funny, considering how many professors were on Epstein's teeth.

That's a bit ironic, no? We don't know exactly what motivates that lack of candor, but it should be investigated. Well, that's true that most certainly should.

Do you really think Jake Clayton's going to be the guy to do it?

Apollo did not respond to a request for comment, but in a February 18 statement Apollo said there's nothing new in the Justice Department Epstein documents and that despite the flurry of coverage and certain constituents pushing their own agendas, the facts remain the same.

Do they though? Do they really?

And even if they do, the problem for Apollo is, we've never seen the real facts.

What we saw was a water down report by Deckert. That's all we saw.

Still, Chris Tob, an investment advisor and litigation expert for public pension funds, representing workers, said Clayton's Apollo holdings are a clear conflict of interest and that he should resign.

There are just too many conflicts here. Tob told the lever and I agree with that 100% and I've been saying this for a while. I don't think Jake Clayton should have this job.

There's way too much conflict of interest going on and I don't know how anyone could have any faith that Jake Clayton's going to do the right thing, especially considering how terrible they did when it comes to curating the Epstein files for release.

So I certainly have my doubts about Jake Clayton and about how neutrally can be when he's pursuing his duty as the head honcho of the SDNY.

So we're going to keep an eye on these cases and see what happens as they continue to make their way through court and when we have some more information on them, we'll get it added to the catalog.

All the information that goes with this episode can be found in the description box.

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