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Former Attorney General Bill Barr told House investigators on Monday that he never saw anything that could tie President Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein’s sordid crimes, Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said.
“He said that he had never seen anything that would implicate President Trump in any of this, and that he believed if there had been anything pertaining to President Trump with respect to the Epstein list, that he felt like the Biden administration would probably have leaked it out,” Comer told reporters partway through Barr’s testimony.
The ex-Trump administration official is the first person to appear in the House Oversight Committee’s probe into the federal government’s handling of Epstein’s case.
Like others subpoenaed to testify after him, Barr’s deposition is being conducted behind closed doors.
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Comer said Barr told investigators that he “didn’t know anything about a client list,” and did not have conversations with Trump about such a list.
“Barr said he’s never seen any information that showed that he was in the files, and that he would be shocked if there was anything pertaining to President Trump that was negative that the Biden administration wouldn’t have leaked out prior to the presidential election,” Comer said.
Democrats who were in the room for the first two hours of Barr’s deposition were much more vague about what went on, but they accused Republicans of taking too soft an approach.
“I have more questions now than I did before going in,” Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va., told reporters before Comer’s remarks. “Just generally, though, I think the Democratic side is doing most of the heavy lifting. I don’t think we’re learning much from the questioning from the House Republicans.”
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Comer said when asked about those comments, “I think it’s unfortunate that the Democrats are trying to, seems to me, politicize this.”
Barr served as attorney general from Feb. 2019 through Dec. 2020, during Trump’s first administration. It was his second stint leading the Department of Justice (DOJ) after first holding the job under former President George H.W. Bush.
Barr notably led the DOJ when Epstein died by suicide in Aug. 2019 while awaiting trial in a New York City jail.
He said days later at a Fraternal Order of Police event in New Orleans that he was “appalled” and “angry” at what he said was the facility’s “failure to adequately secure this prisoner.”
Barr told the Associated Press later that year that he was personally involved in investigating Epstein’s death, specifically that he reviewed security footage from that night that he said showed no one entering the cell the night the late pedophile died.
He eventually concluded Epstein did die by suicide, Barr told the outlet, owing to “a perfect storm of screw-ups” at the jail.
When asked if Barr told as much to House investigators on Monday, Comer declined to “speak for” the former attorney general but added he believed the “general consensus” was that Epstein killed himself with no external foul play.
Barr’s testimony is part of a wider bipartisan investigation into the handling of Epstein’s case, which has also reached several former attorneys general, FBI directors, and former first couple Bill and Hillary Clinton.
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