Within the hours after convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein died in a Manhattan detention cell, then-U.S. Lawyer Basic William Barr pledged to intervene personally to steer the investigation into Epstein’s loss of life.
One supply didn’t recall ever seeing members of the legal professional common’s senior workers examine an inmate loss of life in additional than 20 years. One other supply, concerned within the investigation, mentioned such senior visits have been uncommon, and in the event that they occurred, often pertained to selling correctional applications, not investigating inmate deaths.
Barr’s involvement prolonged to a private evaluation of the roughly 11 hours of jail surveillance footage from the night time of Epstein’s loss of life. He mentioned in an interview with The Related Press three months later that it confirmed nobody had entered the world the place Epstein was housed, and he concurred with the conclusion of the health worker: Epstein had died by suicide.
Now, Barr is scheduled to seem on Monday on Capitol Hill, the place he will likely be questioned behind closed doorways by members of Congress conducting a evaluation of the Epstein matter.
William Barr on the Justice Dept. in 2020
Michael Reynolds/EPA/Bloomberg/Getty Photos
The deposition of Barr, who served two Republican presidents as U.S. legal professional common, comes as Epstein’s 2019 loss of life in federal custody has come beneath renewed, intense public and governmental scrutiny. Home Committee on Oversight and Authorities Reform Chairman James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky, issued a number of deposition subpoenas in August, together with to Barr, former President Invoice Clinton, former U.S. Lawyer Basic Eric Holder and former FBI Director James Comey.
Barr, a veteran of the George H.W. Bush administration who was serving his second stint as head of the Justice Division beneath President Trump on the time, mentioned he was “appalled” when Epstein was discovered lifeless on Aug. 10, 2019, in his cell within the Metropolitan Correctional Middle.
Epstein was being held on the now briefly shuttered federal detention heart after being arrested on intercourse trafficking expenses that would have carried a life sentence. His arrest got here after years of questions surrounding an earlier controversial prosecutorial deal in Florida the place he pleaded to state prostitution expenses and a federal felony case was dropped.
Scrutiny round that deal, and his subsequent loss of life, has fueled years of suspicions and conspiracy theories. The furor additionally has enveloped Epstein’s huge community of highly effective former buddies, together with Mr. Trump and former President Clinton, who’ve disavowed him and haven’t been accused of wrongdoing.
Marketing campaign guarantees to “declassify” information associated to Epstein, made by Mr. Trump and his surrogates in 2024, have led to months of political complications for the White Home.
As Congress steps up its inquiry, Barr is the primary particular person scheduled to be deposed by the committee.
Barr has acknowledged what he referred to as “a perfect storm of screw-ups” on the jail, however mentioned his “personal review” of surveillance footage supported the conclusion that Epstein had died by suicide.
As legal professional common, Barr confronted calls to recuse himself from Epstein’s felony case as a result of he had beforehand labored for a legislation agency, Kirkland and Ellis, that had represented Epstein. (Their paths additionally not directly crossed many years earlier, within the early Seventies, when Epstein was employed to show at an elite non-public college in New York Metropolis the place Barr’s father was the headmaster.)
Here’s a have a look at some unanswered questions Barr could also be requested based mostly on a evaluation of the 2023 DOJ inspector common’s report, paperwork launched by the Bureau of Prisons, and the surveillance video.
Questions for Barr about Jeffrey Epstein loss of life investigation
Did the video Barr reviewed from MCC have a lacking minute?
Earlier than the supposedly “raw” surveillance video was launched final month, displaying about 11 hours of footage from the night time Epstein died, Lawyer Basic Pam Bondi advised reporters that one minute proper earlier than midnight was lacking was as a result of “every night is reset, so every night should have the same missing minute,” from 11:59 p.m. to midnight.
Does Barr nonetheless imagine that “between the time Epstein was locked in his cell at 7:49 p.m. on the night of August 9 and the time he was discovered the next morning at 6:30 a.m., no one entered his tier”?
What did the DOJ do to research theories aside from suicide?
No proof has surfaced suggesting that anybody else was concerned in Epstein’s loss of life. He had been positioned on suicide watch after an obvious try to hold himself a month earlier than, and remained beneath heightened commentary. Nevertheless, there do stay vital unanswered questions on his loss of life, a few of which have been raised in a “60 Minutes” report in 2020 wanting on the medical proof. These included questions regarding the post-mortem.
A personal post-mortem commissioned by Epstein’s household, carried out alongside the official examination by the health worker, raised issues concerning the angle of the ligature marks on his neck and the presence of damaged neck bones, findings that urged a degree of power larger than usually related to a dangling. The health worker disputed that, saying such fractures can happen in suicides.
