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By Sam Stevenson
Associate News Editor
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Senator Ron Wyden has questioned why a 60 Minutes interview with now-former correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi on Jeffrey Epstein’s banking practices never aired, adding it had been "suppressed."
The Oregon Democrat raised the issue in a new Senate Finance Committee report, published on August 4, alleging Deutsche Bank failed to promptly disclose more than $250 million in suspicious Epstein-related transactions.
"It is disappointing that, instead of advancing new facts that would help bring accountability to the men who participated in Epstein’s trafficking operation, the report largely recycles allegations that have already been exhaustively examined by courts and the government," a spokesperson for JPMorgan Chase told Newsweek.
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Asked for comment, Wyden’s office pointed Newsweek to page 61 of the report, where it says his taped interview with Alfonsi was intended for a broader 60 Minutes segment on banks and Epstein, adding that it is unclear whether CBS News leadership will allow the broader segment to air following Alfonsi's departure from the network.
CBS News says the segment simply was not ready before the show’s season ended.
Pushing back against any suggestion that the interview was buried, a spokesperson for the network said in a statement shared with Newsweek via email: “We air pieces when they are ready, and suggesting that an interview is being ‘suppressed’ for any reason is categorically false.”
According to Wyden's report, "the investigation found significant evidence that JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, and Bank of America violated federal anti-money laundering laws by failing to screen and report Epstein’s suspicious financial transactions in a timely manner."
A spokesperson for Bank of America told Newsweek: “We take our legal and regulatory obligations seriously and, as we have previously said, the bank did not facilitate wrongdoing.”
A Deutsche Bank spokesperson told Newsweek: "The bank takes its legal obligations seriously, including appropriately responding to authorized investigations and proceedings. The bank regrets our historical connection with Jeffrey Epstein. We have cooperated with regulatory and law enforcement agencies regarding their investigations and have been transparent in addressing deficiencies and investing in strengthening our control environment in parallel."
Newsweek also reached out to Alfonsi via her talent agency for comment via email on Wednesday morning.
Why It Matters
Wyden’s Senate Finance Committee report says his investigation examined suspicious activity reports, lawsuit materials, court filings and requests for information sent to banks and the Treasury Department.
The Senate Finance Committee press release said the report capped a four-year investigation into how Wall Street banks handled Epstein-related financial activity.
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What To Know
Wyden, a ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, released the report on August 4.
The committee said it concerned “years of complicity by top officials at multiple Wall Street Banks” and alleged that Epstein was able to move large sums of money while banks delayed reporting suspicious activity. Newsweek could not independently verify the claims made in the report.
“I said from the start that if you want to get to the bottom of the Jeffrey Epstein cover-up, you had to follow the money,” Wyden said in a statement after the report’s release.
“My small team of investigators did what Trump’s attorney general and Treasury secretary said was impossible: they connected the dots and found evidence of multiple crimes related to Epstein’s associates.”
He wrote in the report: “Wall Street banks looked the other way as Epstein withdrew millions of dollars in cash with no clear business purpose and was party to thousands of suspicious wire transfers worth more than $1 billion.”
One of the most striking claims involves Deutsche Bank.
Wyden’s Senate report alleged that the bank failed to promptly report more than $250 million in suspicious Epstein-related transactions.
Bank of America was also cited with over roughly $170 million in alleged transactions linked to another billionaire, while JPMorgan Chase was also mentioned in the report.
JPMorgan Chase told Newsweek that the company "strongly" disagrees with the report's conclusions. The company said the report is based on "many false claims contradicted by easily-found public information."
"We began flagging suspicious transactions for the government as early as 2002 and throughout our relationship, and flagged transactions for law enforcement that could be related to human trafficking even after we closed his accounts. Every one of these reports went to the government – and at no point did any law enforcement agency contact the bank, request further records or provide information that would have supported additional action by the bank," JPMorgan Chase told Newsweek.
Wyden’s report said he sat for a taped interview with Alfonsi in March as part of a broader 60 Minutes segment about Wall Street banks, the U.S. Virgin Islands government and Epstein’s associates.
But that interview never aired, and Alfonsi later exited CBS News in May after what she described in a lengthy written statement as an “intense editorial dispute” over a separate 60 Minutes segment on El Salvador’s CECOT prison.
CBS News confirmed Wyden’s interview with Alfonsi took place but said the story had not been completed before the program’s season ended in May.
CBS News has rejected Wyden’s framing.
A spokesperson said in a statement: “We are proud of our aggressive and extensive reporting on the Epstein scandal. That reporting continues.”
CBS News also pointed Newsweek to its broader exclusive and original Epstein coverage, including reports on his banking network, death, DEA scrutiny and the Epstein files.
That leaves a narrower but still important question: if the issue was readiness, not suppression, what precisely remains unfinished, and will the work be revived?
Will ‘60 Minutes’ Epstein Investigation Ever Air?
CBS News has yet to give a public commitment that the Epstein banking segment will air in a future season and has so far declined to say whether the segment would be revisited when the show returns.
CBS News has a clear and fair defense: investigative television pieces are not aired simply because one interview has been completed.
Editors routinely hold or abandon segments if reporting, sourcing, legal review or balance is incomplete.
But Wyden’s report also raises a legitimate transparency question.
If a sitting senator gave a taped interview for a major investigative broadcast, and the underlying subject later became the focus of a Senate report, viewers may reasonably ask whether the journalism is still active, being reworked, or abandoned.
Alfonsi’s account is central, and her departure from CBS News—she said her contract was not renewed—has already drawn attention because it followed a separate internal dispute.
The Wyden report reads: "[S]hortly after the taping of the interview with Senator Wyden, CBS News Leadership led by Bari Weiss made the decision to fire Sharyn Alfonsi. As a result, the interview with Senator Wyden will not be aired and it is unclear whether [editor-in-chief] Bari Weiss and CBS News Leadership will allow the broader segment to ever be aired."
Weiss arrived at CBS News in October 2025 as a high-profile and polarizing hire: the founder of The Free Press, a former New York Times opinion writer and a critic of what she has described as mainstream media orthodoxy.
Supporters cast her appointment as a push for broader viewpoints, while critics questioned her lack of broadcast experience and the impact her leadership would have on CBS News’ editorial culture.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Alfred Joyner and Yannick Demoustier.
Update 8/6/26 3.30 a.m. ET: This article was updated with a statement from Deutsche Bank.
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