An undated photograph of Jeffrey Epstein and who's been identified as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (right) on Little Saint James in the U.S. Virgin Islands released by the Department of Justice. (DOJ)
While an abundance of questions remain surrounding the 2019 death of indicted sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, famed journalist Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez believes she’s discovered at least one answer to the puzzling incident – namely, who was responsible for creating the conditions that allowed one of the world’s most notorious sex offenders to die while in federal custody.
“I believe [President] Donald Trump needed Jeffrey Epstein dead,” Valdes-Rodriguez wrote in a recent report on her Substack. “I believe William Barr’s [Department of Justice] made it possible.”
Immediately following Epstein’s death in 2019, Barr, who served as attorney general during Trump’s first term, announced that a federal probe had been launched to investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident. The conclusion of that probe, released in 2023, was that Epstein died by suicide and that there were no indications of foul play.
However, Barr has closer connections to Epstein than he’s admitted to in public.
Barr’s former law firm, Kirkland & Ellis, had represented Epstein during negotiations over his controversial 2008 plea deal, a deal that provided him and potential co-conspirators broad immunity, and one that was offered by Trump’s former labor secretary, Alexander Acosta, who reportedly said he offered the generous deal because he was told Epstein “belonged to intelligence.”
Barr’s father, Donald Barr, was also the headmaster of the elite Dalton School in New York in the 1970s when he reportedly hired Epstein as a teacher, despite Epstein having no college degree.
Barr refused to recuse himself from the 2019 sex-trafficking investigation into Epstein, but Valdes-Rodriguez argued it was what she described as Donald Trump’s “single greatest existential threat” that led her to believe Barr helped create the conditions that allowed Epstein to die in federal custody.
“Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were friends for decades. Trump called Epstein ‘a terrific guy’ who liked women ‘on the younger side.’ There are documented accusations against Trump in connection with Epstein’s network that have never been fully adjudicated,” Valdes-Rodriguez wrote.
"Epstein alive, in federal custody, facing trial, with his archive potentially accessible to prosecutors, was Donald Trump’s single greatest existential threat. Everything Trump had built – the presidency, the Russia relationship, the entire political project – was at risk as long as Epstein was alive and potentially talking to save his own skin."
Valdes-Rodriguez has uncovered several revelations as it relates to Epstein, largely revolving around his activity in New Mexico, including that his New Mexico property known as Zorro Ranch may have been used to surveil two U.S. nuclear weapons labs, and that the former chief federal prosecutor for the state had previously undisclosed ties to the disgraced financier.