As lawyer basic, William Barr personally investigated Jeffrey Epstein’s dying. Now Congress has questions.

Within the hours after convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein died in a Manhattan detention cell, then-U.S. Legal professional Normal William Barr pledged to intervene personally to steer the investigation into Epstein’s dying. 

Among the many first to reach on the Metropolitan Correctional Middle quickly after Epstein’s dying in August 2019 had been members of Barr’s senior workers. The go to to the federal detention heart by senior members of the lawyer basic’s workers was extremely uncommon, a supply who was there on the time and witnessed the go to advised CBS Information. However so was the dying in custody of such a controversial determine.

One supply did not recall ever seeing members of the lawyer basic’s senior workers examine an inmate dying in additional than 20 years. One other supply, concerned within the investigation, stated such senior visits had been uncommon, and in the event that they occurred, normally pertained to selling correctional applications, not investigating inmate deaths.

Barr’s involvement prolonged to a private assessment of the roughly 11 hours of jail surveillance footage from the evening of Epstein’s dying. He stated 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 medical expert: Epstein had died by suicide. 

Final month, after the FBI made that video public, an evaluation by CBS Information recognized inconsistencies between Barr’s description of the video and what it really confirmed — together with whether or not it actually proves nobody else entered the cell block. 

Now, Barr is scheduled to look on Monday on Capitol Hill, the place he will likely be questioned behind closed doorways by members of Congress conducting a assessment of the Epstein matter.

Sources acquainted with the oversight committee’s plans inform CBS Information they are going to be asking questions on Barr’s involvement within the dying investigation. 

CBS Information has reached out to Barr for remark.

The deposition of Barr, who served two Republican presidents as U.S. lawyer basic, comes as Epstein’s 2019 dying in federal custody has come underneath 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. Legal professional Normal 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 underneath President Trump on the time, stated 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 might 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 dying, 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” recordsdata associated to Epstein, made by Mr. Trump and his surrogates in 2024, have led to months of political complications for the White Home.

The discharge final month of what the Justice Division known as “uncooked” surveillance video from close to Epstein’s cell block, moderately than settling questions concerning the evening he died, raised new ones. The evaluation by CBS Information flagged a number of inconsistencies between the video and the 2023 report launched by the Justice Division’s Inspector Normal on Epstein’s dying. 

As Congress steps up its inquiry, Barr is the primary individual scheduled to be deposed by the committee. 

Barr has acknowledged what he known as “an ideal storm of screw-ups” on the jail, however stated his “private assessment” of surveillance footage supported the conclusion that Epstein had died by suicide. 

As lawyer basic, 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 a long time earlier, within the early Seventies, when Epstein was employed to show at an elite personal faculty 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 assessment of the 2023 DOJ inspector basic’s report, paperwork launched by the Bureau of Prisons, and the surveillance video. 

Questions for Barr about Jeffrey Epstein dying investigation

Did the video Barr reviewed from MCC have a lacking minute?

Earlier than the supposedly “uncooked” surveillance video was launched final month, displaying about 11 hours of footage from the evening Epstein died, Legal professional Normal Pam Bondi advised reporters that one minute proper earlier than midnight was lacking was as a result of “each evening is reset, so each evening ought to have the identical lacking minute,” from 11:59 p.m. to midnight.

That was later disputed by a authorities supply acquainted with the investigation in an interview with CBS Information in July. One other high-level authorities supply stated the FBI, the Bureau of Prisons and the Division of Justice’s Workplace of Inspector Normal are in possession of full unedited copies of the video, and people copies shouldn’t have a lacking minute. Why the FBI launched the video with that small phase lacking is unclear, and it isn’t recognized if something notable occurred throughout that minute.

Does Barr nonetheless consider that “between the time Epstein was locked in his cell at 7:49 p.m. on the evening of August 9 and the time he was found the following morning at 6:30 a.m., nobody entered his tier”? 

Barr made that assertion in 2019, however the CBS Information video evaluation signifies the view from the jail digital camera doesn’t conclusively show nobody entered Epstein’s cell block. A staircase resulting in Epstein’s cell block is nearly totally out of view from the digital camera, with only a small sliver of stairs seen. From the video launched publicly, specialists advised CBS Information it’s unimaginable to find out whether or not anybody entered the jail unit and accessed the staircase with out being captured on the recording.

Simply earlier than 10:40 p.m., the video reveals a glimpse of an orange form transferring up the steps resulting in Epstein’s tier. The inspector basic’s report stated that it was a jail staffer bringing orange linens or inmate clothes up the steps. Some video forensic specialists who reviewed that footage on the request of CBS Information stated they had been skeptical about that interpretation. They recommended the form could possibly be an individual wearing an orange jail jumpsuit climbing the steps. Inmates had been sometimes confined to their cells late at evening.

What did the DOJ do to research theories apart from suicide? 

No proof has surfaced suggesting that anybody else was concerned in Epstein’s dying. He had been positioned on suicide watch after an obvious try to hold himself a month earlier than, and remained underneath heightened statement. Nevertheless, there do stay important unanswered questions on his dying, a few of which had been raised in a “60 Minutes” report in 2020 wanting on the medical proof. These included questions referring to the post-mortem. 

A non-public post-mortem commissioned by Epstein’s household, performed alongside the official examination by the medical expert, raised issues concerning the angle of the ligature marks on his neck and the presence of damaged neck bones, findings that recommended a degree of drive higher than sometimes related to a dangling. The medical expert disputed that, saying such fractures can happen in suicides.