BURSTFormer Attorney General Bill Barr answered questions about Jeffrey Epstein in a Monday deposition with the House Oversight Committee that kicked off the panel’s probe into matters relating to the late sex offender — an interview that fueled Republican defenses of President Trump while leaving the panel’s Democrats hoping to call additional witnesses.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the panel’s chair who was present for the first hours of the deposition, told reporters that Barr testified that he did not know of any information that would implicate President Trump.
“What Attorney General Barr testified in there was that he never had conversations with President Trump pertaining to a client list,” Comer said. “He didn't know anything about a client list. 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 have probably leaked it out.”
Asked about reporting from the Wall Street Journal that Attorney General Pam Bondi had told Trump that he was mentioned in the Epstein files, Comer said Barr talked about how “you go over everyone that you've ever been in communication with, or whatever, that doesn't implicate you, as far as being guilty.”
Democrats on the panel who sat in on the deposition, meanwhile, asserted that they were taking the investigation more seriously than the Republicans.
“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. It doesn't seem like this is something where they are truly caring about the victims and about trying to get to the bottom of what's happening,” Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) said.
“It seems like they are going through the motions, and they want people to believe that they are digging in,” Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) added about her Republican counterparts. “But at the end of the day, I don't think that we've learned anything through the Republican questioning that you couldn't find in one of the articles that most likely your outlets have printed.”
Comer in response said: “It's unfortunate the Democrats are trying to, seems to me, politicize this, when you look at the basis of this, horrific crimes against young girls. And of course, the Democrats’ goal is to try to dig up some type of dirt on President Trump.”
The panel’s Epstein investigation was spurred by the furor that followed the Department of Justice and FBI releasing a memo in July saying that it would not release any more information from the so-called “Epstein files.” The announcement further fueled conspiracy theories that the government is shielding powerful individuals who may have been involved with Epstein’s abuse of young women and underage girls.
Barr is one of 10 high-profile former federal officials who the Oversight panel subpoenaed as it looks into the Epstein matter, pursuant to a Republican-led motion that came as Democrats on the panel also successfully moved to subpoena the Justice Department for the “full, unredacted Epstein files.”
Deposition dates are also set for former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — who, like president Trump, had socialized with Epstein — and other former attorneys general and FBI directors going back to the first prosecution of Epstein in 2008.
Barr was attorney general in President Trump’s first term when Epstein was arrested on federal charges of sex trafficking minors in 2019, and when died in his prison cell later that year in what federal authorities have repeatedly said was a suicide.
He was also attorney general when Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend and associate, was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in 2020. Maxwell was later convicted and is currently in prison.
Crockett said that the questioning led her to want to seek more information from investigators in the Southern District of New York and from former Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, who was the prosecutor who handled Epstein’s much-criticized plea deal in 2008 and was not one of the former officials subpoenaed pursuant to the Republican-led motion in July.
Comer indicated he was open to calling more witnesses when asked about the possibility of bringing in Acosta.
“We’ll bring in everyone what we think can add information to the investigation. This is a serious investigation, this is a sincere investigation. I hope this will be a bipartisan investigation,” Comer said.
The next deadline in the panel’s investigation is Tuesday, the date by which it directed the Department of Justice to deliver all documents and communications relating to its Epstein investigation.
Comer indicated that the Tuesday deadline could be pushed back.
“We're having really good conversations. You have to understand how many, you can imagine, how many documents there are,” Comer said.
“I think we'll receive the documents very soon,” Comer added, saying “we're working together in a good faith effort.”
Crockett said that if the DOJ does not comply with the deadline, Democratic leadership will talk about how to respond.
“I fully anticipate that they should at least try to substantially convey the vast majority of the request,” Crockett said. “Because that is one of the things that the court will look at, if we have to go so far as to try to seek enforcement on this, is whether or not there was substantial compliance.”
The Oversight panel has also subpoenaed Maxwell, but Comer has agreed to delay deposing her until after the Supreme Court considers her petition to overturn her conviction for sex trafficking.
The Justice Department, meanwhile, has made new efforts to reveal previously unseen information — despite the president himself dismissing the Epstein saga as a “hoax.”
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche sat down with Maxwell to try to get new information. The DOJ also made motions to unseal grand jury testimony transcripts from the Epstein case and from Maxwell’s case, but both were denied.