House Republicans release more Epstein documents, Barr testimony

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday released additional documents it received from the Jeffrey Epstein estate, including information from three former attorneys general.

The committee, chaired by Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), unveiled the full transcript of former Attorney General Bill Barr’s deposition last month, as well as letters from former Attorneys General Alberto Gonzalez and Jeff Sessions that deny having any knowledge relevant to the committee’s probe of the federal government's investigation into Epstein and his convicted accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.

The documents procured from Epstein’s estate are an address book of his associates, which had already been made public, and two additional pages from a book Maxwell compiled for the deceased sex offender’s 50th birthday in 2003. On the second page, Coco Brown calls Epstein “Degenerate One” and wishes him happy birthday.

Last week, House Oversight released an initial trove of pages of the book, with notes from President Trump and former President Clinton to Epstein included. 

The committee also released a letter it sent to Epstein’s estate on Tuesday requesting “full, unredacted copies” of cash ledgers, message logs, calendars and flight logs. According to the letter, committee staff privately reviewed the unredacted documents. 

The letter said it will work with the estate "to ensure identifying information of any survivors is properly redacted prior to release."

The Hill has reached out to Darren Indyke, the co-executor with Richard Kahn of Epstein’s estate, for comment. 

Barr, the attorney general under Trump from February 2019 to December 2020, testified to the committee on Aug. 18. 

During his deposition, Barr recalled being made aware that the Southern District of New York was investigating Epstein in 2019. The financier was indicted on federal charges of sex trafficking minors in July of that year. He died in jail that August.

"I'm not generally familiar — or even specifically familiar — with the evidence amassed by the Southern District to prosecute either Epstein before he committed suicide, obviously, and then what they may have collected that affected other potential defendants," Barr said. "In other words, I wasn't monitoring the case that closely to know what the evidence was."

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Barr said he “absolutely” believed that Epstein died by suicide. The former attorney general pointed to surveillance footage from inside the Special Housing Unit of the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where Epstein was held, showing that no one else entered his cell block in the hours before correctional officers discovered his body. Barr also noted that Epstein had made a prior suicide attempt, and had been placed on suicide watch in July 2019 — before being taken off after interviewing with psychologists at the correctional facility. 

“This would've required coordination from probably two dozen people maybe within the prison,” Barr testified. "And all these people were in different groups -- you know, the people who were repairing the cameras, the people who, you know, were responsible for opening and closing the door, the people who were responsible for putting in a new cellmate, things like that."

A joint memo released by DOJ and FBI officials in July concluded that Epstein died by suicide.

Barr also told the committee he did not recall discussing Trump’s presence in the Justice Department's files on Epstein. In July, The Wall Street Journal reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi told Trump in May that his name appears in the files. 

Barr did recall discussing the Epstein case with Trump on two occasions, one being when he was informed about Epstein’s apparent suicide.

"I called him 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,” Barr said. 

The other conversation, the timing of which Barr said he could not recall, involved Trump saying, "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."

In a letter to Comer, Gonzales said he has "no present memory of decisions or conversations relating to the investigation and prosecution of the Jeffrey Epstein matter," during his time as attorney general from February 2005 to September 2007. Epstein was arrested on felony charges of procuring a minor for prostitution and solicitation of a prostitute by police in Palm Beach, Fla., in July 2006, after a 13-month investigation by Palm Beach Police and the FBI.

Sessions, who was Trump’s first attorney general from February 2017 to November 2018, said in a letter that he does "not possess knowledge and information relevant" to the investigation. Sessions noted that his tenure ended eight months before Epstein was indicted on federal charges of sex trafficking minors. 

The committee also sent House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) a letter summarizing its ongoing probe.

Updated at 9:47 p.m. EDT