That “missing minute” from the security camera at the Manhattan Metropolitan Correction Center, where Jeffrey Epstein died nearly six years ago, may not be missing at all, as first reported by CBS News. Conspiracies began swirling after the Department of Justice and FBI released nearly 11 hours of surveillance footage earlier this month, since the time code on the video jumped ahead one minute just before midnight.
The video has raised questions about the missing minute, in which footage shows part of the area near Epstein’s cell where he died by suicide, according to the medical examiner.
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Who has the ‘missing minute?’
A government source familiar with the investigation told CBS News that the FBI, the Bureau of Prisons and the DOJ inspector general have obtained a copy of the video that does not have the one-minute gap.
Still, the revelation doesn’t answer why the minute was missing in the first place. The FBI said it released raw footage from inside the special housing unit the night of Epstein’s death on Aug. 9, 2019. The surveillance footage came from what officials cited as the only relevant video camera that recorded footage in the unit. Several government officials have identified the video as key evidence that supports the conclusion that Epstein’s death was a suicide.
Bondi’s previous statements
Attorney General Pam Bondi was pressed about the gap in coverage earlier this month. She stated the missing minute was because of a nightly reset of the video that led to the recording system missing one recording minute each night and said the information came from the Bureau of Prisons.
“There was a minute that was off that counter and what we learned from (the) Bureau of Prisons was every year, every night, they redo that video,” said Bondi. She added the equipment was “from like 1999, so every night is reset, so every night should have that same missing minute.”
Bondi pledged her department would share more video that revealed the same thing occurred every night when the video system reset. However, that video has yet to be released.
Nightly reset is ‘unusual’
Video forensic professionals told CBS News that a nightly reset is abnormal and was not something they’d experienced with most video systems. The analysts also noted that the recording released by the FBI was edited and not raw, as government officials claimed. Bondi, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino and others are on the record publicly saying the video would be released without alterations.
When the DOJ and FBI released the footage to the public, they noted in a press release that it was the “full raw” recording and “anyone entering or attempting to enter the tier where Epstein’s cell was located from SHU common area would have been captured on the footage.”
Analysts say video isn’t raw footage
Jim Stafford, one of the video forensic analysts who reviewed the video for CBS News, said metadata revealed that the file was first created on May 23 and that it is probably a “screen capture, not an actual export” of the raw recording. He said the metadata shows that the footage was two separate videos spliced together. The footage was also sped up slightly — with the video reportedly running 11 hours, but coming in at a time of 10 hours and 53 minutes.
The FBI and DOJ declined to comment on the report. The Bureau of Prisons stated they “had no additional information to provide.”
Americans’ thoughts on Epstein files
Meanwhile, in a separate finding on Tuesday, The Washington Post reported it texted nearly 1,100 Americans to get their opinions about President Donald Trump and the Epstein files.
The Post reports that fewer than 2 in 10 Americans approve of the way the president is handling the files, while nearly 6 in 10 disapprove. More than two in 10 had no opinion.
Some expressed the belief that they believe Trump has something to hide by failing to release the files. While some said they didn’t care and others expressed confidence that Trump would eventually release the findings.
Meanwhile, about 1 in 7 Americans (15%) believe Epstein died by suicide. While nearly three times as many (44%) believe he was murdered. Forty-two percent said they were unsure about how he died.
