Attorney General Pam Bondi on Tuesday sought to tamp down outrage on the right over the Justice Department’s memo on disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein released this week.
The Justice Department and FBI on Monday released a roughly 11-hour video from outside Epstein’s prison cell door to dispel claims Epstein did not die by suicide. Some on the far right have seized on timestamps in the video, which skip a minute from 11:58 p.m. to midnight.
“The video was not conclusive, but the evidence prior to it was showing he committed suicide,” Bondi explained during a Cabinet meeting.
“And what was on that, there was a minute that was off the counter, and what we learned from the Bureau of Prisons is every night they redo that video… so every night the video is reset, and every night should have the same minute missing,” she added.
“So we’re looking for that video to release that as well to show that a minute is missing every night. And that’s it on Epstein.”
The attorney general also defended an interview she did in February, in which she said an Epstein client list was on her desk to be reviewed. Bondi said Monday she was referring to a variety of files related to the Epstein case.
Bondi added that the thousands of hours of video that were part of the Epstein case turned out to be child pornography and would not be released.
The Justice Department and FBI on Monday published a memo concluding that there was no evidence of a so-called “client list” detailing individuals connected to Epstein, a convicted sex offender.
The existence of such a list had become fodder for conspiracy theories, particularly among those on the right who claimed prominent Democrats were on the list. FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino promoted Epstein conspiracies as right-wing media figures, before entering their current roles.
The new memo also concluded Epstein died by suicide, debunking another common conspiracy theory that he had died under suspicious circumstances.
Bondi, Patel and Bongino have come under scrutiny from prominent voices in the MAGA movement who have questioned whether the government is covering up salacious information around Epstein.
Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to separate sexual misconduct charges and was federally charged in 2019 over allegedly leading a sex trafficking operation involving underage girls from 2002 to 2005.
