Former AG Bill Barr recounts in deposition how he informed Trump of Epstein’s death

By Katelyn Polantz, Annie Grayer, CNN

(CNN) — Former Attorney General Bill Barr recounted in recent 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,” said Barr, who was serving as attorney general under 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 first made public by Rep. James Comer’s House Oversight Committee as part of its investigation into the late convicted sex offender’s case. The panel had subpoenaed Barr along with other high-profile former Justice Department officials and Democrats in August as it ramped up its probe amid a growing outcry for more transparency related to Epstein’s case.

Barr testified that he had spoken twice about the financier with Trump, who at the time was in his first term and had appointed Barr attorney general.

In one conversation, Barr said, 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 sex trafficking defendant came up in conversation with a group of people.

Barr said he couldn’t remember exactly when that conversation happened.

The other time the two men spoke about Epstein was when Barr informed Trump of the man’s death, the former attorney general told House investigators.

‘It was undoubtedly suicide,’ Barr says

Barr maintained in his deposition with House investigators his longheld belief that Epstein killed himself while in federal custody, undercutting unfounded theories that swirled after his death.

Barr didn’t believe it was possible, he said, for someone to get into the convicted sex offender’s jail cell without being captured on security camera footage.

“For me, the video was the icing on the cake,” Barr said. “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 also had recordings and guards in place that didn’t detect anyone entering 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 said.

Barr in his deposition said he was aware that Epstein had been on suicide watch prior to his death, adding: “I found out afterward that, you know, his lawyers had been pressing hard for him to be let out of suicide watch.”

Barr also sent an inspector general to look into the death. “Virtually every day I found out more information,” he told the committee behind closed doors.

“It became clearer and clearer to me that it was undoubtedly suicide.”

House panel asks Epstein estate for more information

In a letter released Tuesday, Comer also requested more information from Epstein’s estate, including unredacted cash ledgers, message logs, calendars and flight logs.

Comer told attorneys for Epstein’s estate that committee staff had the opportunity to review the materials in person, but wanted their own copies.

Comer wrote that the six ledgers contain tens of thousands of individual payments, and some “raise serious questions,” particularly the payments that went to known survivors with the message line “massage” or “gift.”

The 200 pages and digital spreadsheet of Epstein’s missed messages also “clearly indicated criminal behavior,” Comer alleged.

The chairman cited one note that stated: “She is wondering if 2:30 is ok cuz she needs to stay in school.” Another note referenced in the letter read: “[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, according to Comer, include about 1,500 pages of communications detailing Epstein’s activities, including meetings with a number of high-profile people long known to be associated with Epstein. Comer said the calendars, which also included phone calls and travel, had redactions for “unspecified ‘privileged information’ with no accompanying explanation as to what privilege was asserted.”

Flight logs being sought by the committee, meanwhile, 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,” according to the letter.

The estate has already produced two batches of documents as the result of a subpoena, including more documents that the Oversight Committee released Tuesday.

The panel has withdrawn the subpoenas for former Attorneys General Alberto Gonzalez and Jeff Sessions, a committee aide told CNN, after both men swore in letters to the committee that neither possessed any information related to the committee’s investigation into Epstein.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.