Attorneys for investment bank JPMorgan Chase accused Democratic officials in the U.S. Virgin Islands of engaging in “quid pro quo” relationships with late financier Jeffrey Epstein in an explosive Tuesday legal filing shared with The Daily Wire.

Lawyers for the U.S. Virgin Islands filed a lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase late last year claiming that the financial institution, which worked with Epstein from 1998 to 2013, financially benefited from his underage sex trafficking schemes. The filing from JPMorgan Chase, which is opposed to an attempt from U.S. Virgin Islands attorneys to toss the company’s defenses, alleged that the government of the territory was the entity which “most directly failed to protect public safety” and “most actively facilitated” the criminal activity.

“Epstein could have lived anywhere in the world. He chose USVI,” the document said. “Discovery obtained in this case reveals why. For two decades, Epstein maintained a quid pro quo relationship with USVI’s highest ranking officials.”

Attorneys for the investment bank added that Epstein, who committed suicide in his jail cell in 2019, allegedly granted officials “money, advice, influence and favors” as they provided him with tax incentives, effectively “looking the other way when he walked through USVI airports accompanied by girls and young women.”

The court document accused Stacey Plaskett, the U.S. Virgin Islands non-voting delegate to Congress, of meeting with Epstein in his Manhattan townhouse less than a year before his arrest in 2019. Attorneys added that U.S. Virgin Islands First Lady Cecile De Jongh allegedly helped to foster a political culture in the Democratic Party of the Virgin Islands which “allowed Epstein to remain unchecked in exchange for his sponsorship and financial contributions.”

Lawyers additionally contended that Epstein “exerted influence” over the territory’s attempts to update sex offender penalties in 2011. “Even as to the regulations USVI did enforce, it did so incompetently,” the complaint added. “While the USVI did conduct site visits of Epstein’s residence, those inspections were cursory at best.”

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff previously tossed most charges against JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank in the proposed class action lawsuit submitted by officials from the U.S. Virgin Islands and an unnamed Epstein victim. Deutsche Bank agreed last week to pay $75 million to settle a lawsuit accusing the company of failing to recognize the sex trafficking scheme.

JPMorgan Chase continued their relationship with Epstein even after he pleaded guilty to two counts of soliciting prostitution from a teenage girl in 2008.

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The disgraced financier had a deeper relationship with employees of the investment bank than the company previously admitted, according to a recent report from The Wall Street Journal. Mary Erdoes, a senior lieutenant to veteran JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, visited Epstein’s townhouse in 2011 and 2013, unnamed people familiar with the matter told the outlet, and corresponded with him about a charitable fund JPMorgan Chase was seeking to launch.

John Duffy, who formerly led JPMorgan Chase’s private bank, reportedly visited the townhouse in 2013 for a meeting. The company renewed an authorization one month later, permitting Epstein to borrow funds against his account despite multiple warnings from compliance officers. Justin Nelson, a banker who worked with Epstein at JPMorgan Chase, traveled to a New Mexico ranch owned by the pedophile in 2016 and participated in a handful of meetings at the Manhattan townhouse between 2014 and 2017.

TikTok filed a lawsuit against the state of Montana on Monday over a ban on the social media firm, contending that the new statute violates the First Amendment and the Commerce Clause.

Officials in Montana recently enacted a bill which prohibits app stores from making TikTok available for download in the state, a move which occurs as federal authorities contend that the platform, which is owned by Chinese technology firm ByteDance, may provide members of the Chinese Communist Party access to user data in the United States.

“The state has enacted these extraordinary and unprecedented measures based on nothing more than unfounded speculation,” said the lawsuit from TikTok, which was filed in federal court.

Attorneys for TikTok contended that the prohibition violates the First Amendment since the law entails “shutting down the forum for speech for all speakers on the app and singling these speakers out for disfavored treatment.” They also asserted that the ban breaches the Commerce Clause, which limits the authority of state governments to unduly burden interstate and foreign commerce, and functions as a bill of attainder, an effective declaration of criminal guilt and infliction of punishment by lawmakers prohibited in the Constitution.

“We are challenging Montana’s unconstitutional TikTok ban to protect our business and the hundreds of thousands of TikTok users in Montana,” TikTok said in a statement. “We believe our legal challenge will prevail based on an exceedingly strong set of precedents and facts.”

Montana Republican Governor Greg Gianforte, on the other hand, has said that the law was intended to protect “private data and sensitive personal information from being harvested by the Chinese Communist Party.” The bill was sponsored by Montana Republican State Sen. Shelley Vance, who remarked that TikTok is a “major threat to our national security.”

Attorneys for TikTok also said that the ban is preempted by federal law since the statute “intrudes upon matters of exclusive federal concern.” Another federal lawsuit filed by five social media influencers last week made a similar argument, contending that Montana lacks the authority to enforce laws related to national security.

President Joe Biden and several state officials have banned TikTok from government devices over data security and surveillance concerns after reports indicated that ByteDance staffers in China used the platform to monitor the locations of specific American users. Members of Congress have also floated various bills to ban the platform across the nation.

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Lawmakers at the federal level have additionally drawn attention to the censorship practices implemented by TikTok and called for a mandatory divestiture of the platform from ByteDance. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew insisted in his recent testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee that a forced sale of TikTok to an American company would not resolve national security concerns.

“I am well aware that the fact that ByteDance has Chinese founders has prompted concerns that our platform could be used as or become a tool of China or the Chinese Communist Party,” the executive remarked. “Divestment doesn’t address the fundamental concerns that I have heard, as a change in ownership would not impose any new restrictions on data flows or access. This is not an issue of nationality.”