On Monday, the Justice Department and FBI released a joint memo aimed at putting the saga of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to rest. It described how an exhaustive investigation had led to the same conclusions we’ve heard before: Epstein died by suicide in a prison cell in 2019 while awaiting trial, and there is no evidence that he kept a “client list” of political elites and celebrities he could blackmail over involvement in his trafficking ring.
Those answers, of course, did not sit well with the significant portion of the MAGA base that fervently believes Epstein was murdered by the powerful people he could implicate in his crimes, and that there is, somewhere, a document that definitively proves they took part in the same abuses. White House officials knew they would face blowback from the president’s conspiracy theorist supporters. But what they may not have expected is that one element of their final report — almost 11 hours of security footage from the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City on the last night of Epstein’s life — would add fuel to the fire.
The camera view gives a partial glimpse of a common area in the facility, with Epstein’s cell door out of frame to the right. Early in the evening, guards escort him through that area to his cell. For the rest of the night, through early morning, no one can be seen approaching his door. But, many viewers noted, there seems to be a glitch in the video as the timer turns from 11:58 to 11:59 p.m., seemingly skipping a minute ahead to 12:00 midnight. Naturally, that “missing” minute was enough to get people wondering if the DOJ and FBI were withholding a key piece of information, and just hoping nobody would notice.
“This missing minute doesn’t look good and it just fuels [mis]trust and speculation,” wrote the person behind one popular MAGA conspiracy theory account on X. “Was it deleted by the prior holders of this tape?” Right-wing commentator Robby Starbuck wrote a post on the “extremely bizarre things about the video of Epstein’s cell that Pam Bondi’s DOJ released as proof no one killed him,” noting the time lapse. Podcaster Benny Johnson also shared the clip with his audience, pulling in more than 2 million views. Meanwhile, trolls used AI video tools to insert Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and Bill Gates into the footage, jokingly claiming to have unearthed the missing minute of action.
Chatter and confusion around the time-skip led to a question on “lingering mysteries” for U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Tuesday at a Cabinet meeting. A reporter asked whether she could confirm if Epstein had ever worked for an American or foreign intelligence agency, adding, “Also, could you say why there’s a minute missing from the jailhouse tape?” Before she could respond, Trump himself jumped in to deflect. “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?” he asked, incredulous. “This guy’s been talked about for years. You’re asking — we have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things. And are people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is unbelievable. You want to waste the time — do you feel like answering?” Trump asked Bondi, who replied that she wouldn’t mind.
Bondi said she had no knowledge of whether Epstein worked for intelligence services, and on the topic of the video, muddled through an explanation of how the recording system in the prison works. “The minute missing from the video, we released a video showing definitively — the video was not conclusive, but the evidence prior to it was, showing he committed suicide,” the attorney general said. “What was on that, there was a minute off the counter, and what we learned from [Federal] Bureau of Prisons was, every year — every night, they redo that video. It’s old, from like 1999. So every night the video is reset, and every night should have the same minute missing. So we’re looking for that video to release that as well, showing that a minute is missing every night. And that’s it on Epstein.”
But, as Bondi and others in the administration have already learned, it’s virtually impossible to turn the page on the Epstein story now that so many are invested in alternative narratives and the idea of bringing his associates to justice. It probably doesn’t help that he was the president’s longtime friend — a pesky detail that has allowed some, including former ally Elon Musk, to suggest that the White House is suppressing information on Epstein in order to shield Trump. “How can people be expected to have faith in Trump if he won’t release the Epstein files?” he posted on X Tuesday after Trump attempted to shut down the question from a reporter on Epstein. House Democrats have looked to emphasize their connection as well, demanding that the DOJ release any material on Epstein that mentions the president. Trump and Epstein appear to have been close until the early 2000s, though they later had what the president has called “a falling out,” and Epstein was evidently banned from Mar-a-Lago in 2008, shortly before pleading guilty in Florida to charges of soliciting prostitution.
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In any case, the “missing minute” will now enter the Epstein conspiracist lore, inspiring who knows what sort of outlandish new theories. Trump may be tired of hearing about this stuff, but the internet has a bottomless appetite for it.
From Rolling Stone US
