Six-month investigation into Thiel's ties to Epstein stalled again by Senate Republicans
Thiel's venture capital company, Valar Ventures, has made Epstein's estate over $170 million since the two got into business together in 2015.
Cam here 👋 bringing you your daily dose of what people are doing – good, bad, and otherwise – in the world of politics. We’re diving into the stories you won’t see anywhere else. And remember, you can also keep up with me over on TikTok and Bluesky.
Editor’s Note: I will be taking some time off for the next couple of weeks, but will be back at it on March 23. While I’m out, I’ll be sending you some longform, investigative reporting that has had some recent updates based on current events.
What Happened
Senate Republicans have once again ignored requests by US Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) to widen his investigation into the finances behind Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operation to include American oligarch Peter Thiel, as well as known Epstein co-conspirators Nadia Marcinko and Jean-Luc Brunel.
The Produce Epstein Treasury Records Act (PETRA) would require the US Treasury to comply with the US Senate Finance Committee’s investigation into the money trail left by Epstein that connects the disgraced, deceased sex criminal to his clients and financial backers. Similar inquiries by the city of New York, the US Virgin Islands, and Epstein’s victims have led to expensive, hasty lawsuit settlement payouts from billionaires and financial institutions in order to prevent potentially incriminating evidence against them from going public.
Wyden introduced the PETRA Act as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act in September 2025. The bill passed in the Senate but stalled in the House. Wyden introduced the measure again in early March, but this time was blocked by his Republican colleagues in the Senate.
“This administration came in with a whole lot of bluster about releasing the Epstein files, so I wanted to give them a chance to make good on their word,” said Wyden. “And there is an important, new reason to pass this bill. There is a lot of Epstein-related news breaking nearly every day. I’d wager a lot of banks where Epstein and his network did business are following that news, and they’re taking a second look at his transactions. It’s entirely possible there are new bank filings coming in today, and they’re flagging a new set of suspicious transactions that deserve investigation.”
The Senate Finance Committee’s investigation, which began in 2022, now includes Thiel and his venture capital company Valar Ventures, which took a $40 million investment from Epstein. In total, the investigation now encompasses over 70 co-conspirators and entities “that transacted with Jeffrey Epstein.” The committee’s investigators obtained access to a small number of suspicious transaction reports from the US Treasury under the Biden administration in 2024, but Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revoked access soon after Trump was inaugurated.
“The basic question here is whether a bunch of rich pedophiles and Epstein accomplices are going to face any consequences for their crimes, and Scott Bessent is doing his best to make sure they won’t,” Wyden said in a statement. “From the beginning, my view has been that following the money is the key to identifying Epstein’s clients as well as the henchmen and banks that enabled his sex trafficking network. It’s past time for Bessent to quit running interference for pedophiles and give us the Epstein files he’s sitting on.”
Thiel, the Silicon Valley billionaire who believes democracy is a failed experiment, has become inexorably tied to the Trump administration through his surveillance company, Palantir, which has been awarded billions in government contracts this year. This includes $10 billion from the US Army to integrate AI into its processes and $30 million from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to allow the government to track and intimidate immigrants.
The company also seeks to consolidate citizen data across government agencies, a potential violation of the right to privacy guaranteed in the currently eroding Fourth Amendment.
Thiel first landed on Wyden’s radar in June, when it was discovered that Epstein invested in Valar Ventures as part of an attempt to gain Thiel’s favor. An investigation by New York Times reporter Matthew Goldstein confirmed that Thiel is still paying Epstein’s estate dividends from that investment, to the tune of nearly $170 million.
So far, the Treasury has been unwilling to cooperate with Wyden, instead laying blame on former President Joe Biden, who granted the Finance Committee access to certain documents in 2024. Bessent has even gone as far as to lob thinly veiled threats at Wyden if he continues his inquiry.
During an event held by the Young Americans Foundation in August 2025
, Bessent simultaneously claimed that the Treasury had no power to investigate financial crimes and threatened to investigate Wyden’s finances, claiming without evidence that the senator engaged in insider trading.
“Any law enforcement person who wants to come and see them, we hold them. Our job — we are not detectives. We collect them. It’s just like the — when we make payments, the Treasury, the Commerce Department, tells us to make a payment. We are a paymaster,” Bessent stammered. “Sen. Wyden’s rich. Sen. Wyden, somehow his stock trading account — Sen. Wyden trades better than Paul Pelosi. He was up 125% and then 75%. So, I would — I’m not going to disclose anything because I’ve never looked, but I would guess there’s some stories on Sen. Wyden.”
Republicans on the Committee have been similarly unwilling to aid Wyden in his investigation, blocking requests to issue subpoenas for the documents from the Treasury. Wyden’s PETRA bill is the latest escalation in his attempts to obtain the sensitive financial information needed to uncover any financial ties between Epstein and those who profited from his sex trafficking empire.
The legislation will be introduced as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, an annual budget authorization currently working its way through Congress. Tying the legislation to a bill guaranteed a vote will force every senator to go on the record in their support of — or opposition to — accountability for Epstein’s co-conspirators and justice for his victims.
If passed, PETRA would require the US Treasury to comply with the investigation and give the Committee:
Within 30 days, physical copies of all suspicious activity reports (SARs) submitted on Epstein and his co-conspirators within 30 days
Within 30 days, a report of all financial institutions that submitted SARs about transactions related to Epstein and any of his financial holdings
Within 60 days, details on any investigations conducted by the US Treasury of potential Bank Secrecy Act violations into any accounts tied to Epstein
Bessent has repeatedly attacked Wyden for conducting the investigation and denied any ability for the Treasury to investigate financial crimes. The legislation would force his hand, however, and reveal if Trump had the Treasury conduct a purge of his name from anything related to Epstein, as he instructed the US Department of Justice to do in March.
“My head just about exploded when I heard Bessent say it wasn’t his department’s job to investigate these Epstein bank records,” Wyden said. “It’s simply impossible that somebody with his background in finance is unaware of [Financial Crimes Enforcement Network] or any of the other investigative offices within the Treasury.”
The pressure mounting against Bessent — coupled with a shameless desire to stay in Trump’s good graces —appears to be taking a noticeable toll. Last Wednesday, Bessent freaked out during a social event when he saw an administration colleague he believed was talking negatively about Bessent to Trump. The 62-year-old George Soros protégé and close Thiel associate told 36-year-old Bill Pulte he wanted to take Pulte to the parking lot so Bessent could “fucking beat your ass.” The violent outburst mirrors an April fight between Bessent and Elon Musk over Trump’s pick to run the IRS.
In addition to Wyden’s investigation, the US House Committee on Oversight last month requested that Bessent hand over all relevant suspicious activity reports relating to Epstein as part of its own investigation no later than Sept. 15. The request was made without a subpoena, but Committee members are unusually optimistic that Bessent will comply with their investigation.
The Treasury declined to comment for this story.
It’s easy for individual members of Congress to get overlooked by national outlets as they quietly skate to reelection again, and again, and again. The following is an overview of different congressional representatives you may not have heard of, with fun facts about their origin stories they’ve tried to keep out of the public narrative.
Since taking office in 2015, Rep. Norman has:
Seen his net worth increase from $53M to $57M
Taken out over $300,000 in PPP loans that he never paid back
Sponsored 175 bills
Authored one bill that has been signed into law, to rename a post office
Privately pressured Trump to invoke martial law—or as he called it, “marshall law” — to prevent Biden from being sworn in as president in 2021
Admitted that he’s “not concerned” about US citizens detained by ICE agents
Sued Nancy Pelosi over House rules that required Members to wear a mask on the Floor and refused to wear a mask while he had COVID-19
Tried to reinstate disgraced white supremacist and Nazi sympathizer Rep. Steve King
Fun Facts
While Rep. Norman campaigned on preventing economic hardship, he returned to his multimillionaire roots when his term began in 2025. Two months after being sworn in, he cosponsored a bill to create a new $250 bill with Donald Trump’s face on it.
During the 2018 confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh for US Supreme Court Justice, which revealed a troubling history of alleged sexual assault, Norman dismissed the allegations. He tried to make a joke out of them, including facetiously claiming that fellow Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had been sexually assaulted by Abraham Lincoln.
A few months before Norman “accused” the sixteenth US President of sexual assault, he met with a group of parents who were concerned about gun safety. Norman responded by pulling a gun on them. Those involved tried to press charges, but the first prosecutor recused himself due to his personal friendship with Norman. The request made its way to the Republican state attorney general, who dismissed the charges.
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Thank you, Mr. Stevenson,