There have been claims that the alleged lost minute of security footage from the night Jeffrey Epstein was discovered dead from what is believed to be a suicide is actually not missing at all.
Nearly 11 hours of surveillance footage from the prison where Epstein allegedly committed himself in 2019 were made public by the US Justice Department (DOJ) earlier this month.
But the video’s time code in the lower left corner jumps from shortly before 11.59 p.m. to midnight.
Attorney General Pam Bondi attributed it to a tape transfer that happens automatically each night and antiquated equipment “from 1999.”
However, when ‘a source connected with the inquiry’ told the Daily Mail that the FBI and DOJ both possess the ‘raw tape’ of the missing minute, the situation has taken a new turn.
Why does the Jeffrey Epstein prison tape matter?
You don’t have to believe in conspiracies to question the way the Epstein story has been handled.
President Donald Trump did a dramatic U-turn by directing the release of some papers, just days after the DOJ and FBI declared there was no proof of a “Epstein client list.” Republicans demanded ‘transparency’, and two judges rejected the motion, citing US law.
Politicians and even Republican allies are urging Trump to make everything public, despite the fact that he has remained distant from Epstein since their connection in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The files may implicate well-known people and provide an explanation for why they socialised with a convicted sex offender who is on trial for trafficking underage girls to “Epstein island,” which has led to criticism of the Trump administration.
Officially, the City of New York’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner concluded that Epstein had committed suicide and that no criminal evidence was found.
However, given that he visited his island with affluent and influential individuals who might not have wanted him “to snitch,” conspiracy theorists wonder if he was killed in his cell.
What’s the latest on the Epstein files?
We don’t know what was discussed during the Justice Department’s recent interview with Epstein’s ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.
She and Epstein conspired to sexually abuse young children, and she is currently serving a 20-year sentence in a federal prison in Florida.
Trump claimed on Tuesday, July 29, that the paedophile had taken additional young ladies from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, including well-known accuser Virginia Giuffre, who committed herself at the age of 41 at her farm in Western Australia.
“The answer is yes, they were in the spa,” he told reporters. “I told him, I said, ‘Listen, we don’t want you taking our people, whether it was spa or not spa’. And he was fine. And then not too long after that, he did it again.”
When he was asked if Giuffre was one of the employees poached by Epstein, he replied, “I think she worked at the spa… I think so. I think that was one of the people. He stole her, and by the way, she had no complaints about us, as you know, none whatsoever.”