Newly released surveillance video from outside Jeffrey Epstein’s New York prison cell the night of his suicide now shows the so-called “missing minute” that largely helped fuel conspiracy theories about the pedophile’s death.
The surveillance clip was among the more than 33,000 pages of documents and videos tied to Epstein’s sex-trafficking probe that were released by the House Oversight Committee late Tuesday.
In the Justice Department’s initial dump of Epstein files, an 11-hour recording from outside Epstein’s cell block at the Metropolitan Correctional Center the night he killed himself in 2019 had a minute missing just before midnight.
Critics were quick to suggest that the missing footage — which lasted between 11:58:59 p.m. Aug. 9 and midnight Aug. 10 — showed there was some type of political cover-up tied to Epstein’s death.
At the time, Attorney General Pam Bondi dismissed concerns of a wider conspiracy — insisting that the last minute of footage is deleted each night by the Bureau of Prisons as the cameras reset.
The newly released footage appears to show the camera data switching over at midnight, which led to two pieces of footage being combined.
Nothing appears to happen in the previously missing minute recorded outside the cell block.
It wasn’t immediately clear why the minute was previously absent.
Bondi hasn’t yet addressed her previous explanation.
The Epstein case has caused a political headache for President Trump in recent weeks after many of his supporters embraced the slew of conspiracy theories of a potential cover-up regarding the convicted sex offender’s death.
Trump, for his part, has repeatedly tried to downplay the firestorm — saying he’s baffled by the interest in the investigative files.
The newly released files — posted on a Google drive — largely included court documents and other previously released information in the case.
The document dump is related to the probes into Epstein, who killed himself as he faced charges for sexually abusing teenage girls, and his former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a lengthy prison sentence for helping him.
In the wake of the release, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, ripped Republicans on the panel for releasing material that he said consisted almost entirely of already available information.
“The 33,000 pages of Epstein documents James Comer has decided to ‘release’ were already mostly public information. To the American people — don’t let this fool you,” Garcia said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) have proposed a measure that would require the Justice Department to release all of its unclassified Epstein records, including those held by the FBI and federal prosecutors.
Read the full article here
