Former Attorney General Bill Barr recounted in current testimony with House investigators how he informed President Donald Trump of Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide in 2019.
“I called [the president] up and said, ‘You better brace for this,’ and I told him words to that effect, and I told him about it and told him we were going to be investigating it very vigorously,” mentioned Barr, who was serving as legal professional normal beneath the Trump administration when Epstein died in a cell in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York.
“He had the same reaction I did, which was, ‘How the hell did that happen, he’s in federal custody?’”
The transcript of Barr’s deposition marks the primary made public by Rep. James Comer’s House Oversight Committee as half of its investigation into the late convicted intercourse offender’s case. The panel had subpoenaed Barr together with different high-profile former Justice Department officers and Democrats in August because it ramped up its probe amid a rising outcry for extra transparency associated to Epstein’s case.
Barr testified that he had spoken twice concerning the financier with Trump, who on the time was in his first time period and had appointed Barr legal professional normal.
In one dialog, Barr mentioned, Trump “said something to the effect that he had broken off with Epstein long ago and that he had actually pushed him out of Mar-a-Lago,” when the intercourse trafficking defendant got here up in dialog with a gaggle of folks.
Barr mentioned he couldn’t keep in mind precisely when that dialog occurred.
The different time the 2 males spoke about Epstein was when Barr informed Trump of the person’s death, the previous legal professional normal advised House investigators.
Barr maintained in his deposition with House investigators his longheld perception that Epstein killed himself whereas in federal custody, undercutting unfounded theories that swirled after his death.
Barr didn’t imagine it was doable, he mentioned, for somebody to get into the convicted intercourse offender’s jail cell with out being captured on safety digital camera footage.
“For me, the video was the icing on the cake,” Barr mentioned. “There was a lot of evidence about, you know, his state of mind and other physical evidence pointing to suicide and also testimonial and records pointing to this.” The jail additionally had recordings and guards in place that didn’t detect anybody getting into Epstein’s jail cell.
“It was my judgment, from what I saw on the camera and what I looked at, I didn’t think it was possible for someone to get up to the tier and open the door without being picked up in the camera,” he mentioned.
Barr in his deposition mentioned he was conscious that Epstein had been on suicide watch previous to his death, including: “I found out afterward that, you know, his lawyers had been pressing hard for him to be let out of suicide watch.”
Barr additionally despatched an inspector normal to look into the death. “Virtually every day I found out more information,” he advised the committee behind closed doorways.
“It became clearer and clearer to me that it was undoubtedly suicide.”
In a letter launched Tuesday, Comer additionally requested extra data from Epstein’s property, together with unredacted money ledgers, message logs, calendars and flight logs.
Comer advised attorneys for Epstein’s property that committee workers had the chance to evaluation the supplies in individual, however needed their very own copies.
Comer wrote that the six ledgers comprise tens of hundreds of particular person funds, and a few “raise serious questions,” significantly the funds that went to identified survivors with the message line “massage” or “gift.”
The 200 pages and digital spreadsheet of Epstein’s missed messages additionally “clearly indicated criminal behavior,” Comer alleged.
The chairman cited one be aware that said: “She is wondering if 2:30 is ok cuz she needs to stay in school.” Another be aware referenced in the letter learn: “[Named Co-Conspirator] hasn’t confirmed [Female 1] for 11:00 yet, so she is keeping [Female 2] on hold in case [Female 1] doesn’t call back.”
The requested calendars, in response to Comer, embody about 1,500 pages of communications detailing Epstein’s actions, together with conferences with a quantity of high-profile folks lengthy identified to be related to Epstein. Comer mentioned the calendars, which additionally included cellphone calls and journey, had redactions for “unspecified ‘privileged information’ with no accompanying explanation as to what privilege was asserted.”
Flight logs being sought by the committee, in the meantime, comprise of about 3,500 pages of logs that detailed “departure, arrival, time, and manifest information of thousands of flights taken by Mr. Epstein, Ms. Ghislaine Maxwell, associates, survivors, and others,” in response to the letter.
The property has already produced two batches of documents because the consequence of a subpoena, together with extra paperwork that the Oversight Committee launched Tuesday.
The panel has withdrawn the subpoenas for former Attorneys General Alberto Gonzalez and Jeff Sessions, a committee aide advised NCS, after each males swore in letters to the committee that neither possessed any data associated to the committee’s investigation into Epstein.