President Donald Trump was baffled when he learned that Jeffrey Epstein died while in federal custody in 2019, former Attorney General Bill Barr recounted in his recent deposition to the House Oversight Committee.
Barr, who served as Trump’s attorney general for less than two years during his first administration, said he informed the president that Epstein died by suicide at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York after being arrested on child sex-trafficking charges.
“I called him 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,” Barr testified in a deposition to members of the House Oversight Committee in August, and his testimony was released this week.
“He had the same reaction I did, which was ‘How the hell did that happen? He’s in federal custody,’” Barr said, describing the essence of the conversation.
The revelation is part of Barr’s recently released deposition to the committee. Barr, alongside others, including former president Bill Clinton, has been subpoenaed for testimony related to Epstein after public interest in the government’s investigation surged over the past few months. Much of it stemmed from Trump’s campaign promise to release the full extent Epstein Files, which he has since walked back. That decision sparked massive backlash on both sides of the political aisle.
Though it’s been six years since Epstein died, Barr was forced to recount his knowledge of the government’s investigation into Epstein to the committee in a deposition for which he was subpoenaed.
The former attorney general made it clear that the exact details of when he learned the government was investigating Epstein on sex trafficking allegations, when he spoke to Trump about it, and when he informed Trump of Epstein’s death were a bit fuzzy, according to the transcript released on Tuesday.
But Barr recalled how Trump reacted when he learned Epstein died by suicide while being watched in the federal jail, and that he had limited conversations with the president about Epstein prior to the disgraced financier’s death.
In the other conversation about Epstein, Barr recalled that Trump told him he had “broken off” his friendship with Epstein years before he was arrested and pushed Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago golf club.
Other than those instances, Barr indicated he did not discuss Epstein much with the president. Barr testified that Trump did not express opinions on the investigation into Epstein and did not provide any instructions or preferences related to it.
The former attorney general’s deposition refutes theories that Trump intervened in the government’s investigation into Epstein to suppress any information about his personal relationship with Epstein from becoming public.
Barr also confirmed that the government’s investigation into Epstein’s death confirmed it was a suicide – another theory that many have disputed. Some have floated the conspiracy that Epstein’s death was orchestrated by a high-profile individual or individuals who were associated with his alleged sex trafficking scheme.
