Democrat Oregon Senator Ron Wyden was stunned into silence after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent brought up the lawmaker’s son’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein while testifying before the Senate Finance Committee Wednesday.
During their heated exchange, and in response to repeated attacks by Wyden, Bessent noted the fact that Senator Wyden’s son, Adam Wyden, had relations with Jeffrey Epstein and said that his father had “mendaciously slandered the Treasury building to cover up his son having an investment with Jeffrey Epstein” at the hearing. At first, Wyden fought back by saying that “Nobody is interested in the rambling of a capo in the most corrupt regime in American history.” The Treasury Secretary then brought up the fact that Adam Wyden’s largest investment position was a strip club chain called Rick’s Cabaret, to which the Senator had no response.
Bessent was on Capitol Hill to testify about Trump’s 2027 budget requests before Congress.
WATCH:
BESSENT: “Sen. Wyden has slandered the Treasury building to cover up his son having an investment with Jeffrey Epstein.”
WYDEN: “Nobody is interested in the rambling of a capo in the most corrupt regime in American history.”
BESSENT: “Your son’s largest investment position… pic.twitter.com/N8KNmWxvMV
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) June 3, 2026
“Did your son and Epstein discuss pole dancing?” Bessent asked.
Adam Wyden has managed his own hedge fund called ADW Capital Partners since 2010. (RELATED: Senator Ron Wyden’s Kids Drove Man To Suicide, Had To Be Maced By Own Mother, Lawsuit Alleges)
Email exchanges between Jeffrey Epstein and Adam Wyden, and others around them derived from the Department of Justice release of the Epstein files revealed that the two met via a mutual friend, Jonathan Farkas, and that the three of them met at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion back in 2016, according to The New York Post.
“Adam my friend jeffery [sic] Epstein who manages 5 billion said to call his office he [sic] wants to see your record and would consider investing with you,” Farkas wrote to Wyden on April 27, 2016, per the Post.
After the meeting, the investor penned a follow-up email to Epstein which noted that the two of them were “like-minded individuals,” the emails read. Wyden noted his own “passion and dedication for [his] business” in hopes of taking him on as a client.
“I live and breathe this business and take my returns, integrity and reputation quite seriously,” he wrote in the April 2016 message. He concluded that he “would very much look forward to having you join us at the fund,” the Post added. (RELATED: Epstein Reportedly Left Suicide Note — But It’s Currently Under Lock And Key)
Adam Wyden’s activist hedge fund is offering to buy Meineke owner Driven Brands for nearly $3 billion, according to a letter viewed by The Wall Street Journal https://t.co/powt3NLgYX
— WSJ Markets (@WSJmarkets) April 30, 2026
It is unclear what the exact nature of the business relations between the two were, as when the Post called to inquire, Adam Wyden hung up.
Adam Wyden’s ADW fund is a 10% shareholder in the Houston-based RCI Hospitality, which runs more than 40 strip clubs and happens to be a parent company of Rick’s Cabaret, according to a Forbes profile on the Senator’s son.