Jes Staley And The First 1200 Emails With Jeffrey Epstein
Jes Staley exchanged more than 1,200 emails with Jeffrey Epstein between 2008 and 2012, a period that included the aftermath of Epstein’s 2008 conviction in Florida. The volume and tone of the correspondence raised serious questions about Staley’s long-standing description of the relationship as primarily professional. The emails included deeply personal language, with Staley referring to Epstein as one of his “deepest friends” and later as his “most cherished friend,” while the two also referred to one another as “family.” Other messages contained unexplained references such as “Snow White” and exchanges about women that regulators later said were inconsistent with a purely professional banker-client relationship. Staley had originally developed the relationship with Epstein while working at JPMorgan, where Epstein was an important private-banking client, but the correspondence showed that their connection continued well after Epstein became a registered sex offender. The emails became especially damaging because British regulators were investigating whether Staley had accurately described his relationship with Epstein to Barclays and the Financial Conduct Authority. Barclays had told regulators in 2019 that Staley did not have a close relationship with Epstein and that their last contact occurred well before Staley joined Barclays in 2015. The cache of emails provided by JPMorgan raised obvious questions about that characterization and became a central part of the regulatory investigation. Staley stepped down as Barclays CEO on November 1, 2021, after the FCA and Prudential Regulation Authority delivered preliminary findings concerning how he had characterized the relationship, although Barclays stressed at the time that regulators had not found that Staley knew about Epstein’s crimes. The controversy was therefore not simply that Staley knew Epstein; it was that the documentary record showed a relationship far more extensive, personal and sustained than the version that had been presented to regulators. to contact me: [email protected]