In more bad news for a government already facing criticism over a lack of transparency in releasing the files on sex trafficking financier Jeffrey Epstein, the video of his prison cell on the night he died is missing three times as much footage as originally reported.
Many pundits had seized upon the so-called “missing minute” in the video as evidence that the government was still covering up how Epstein died in his cell in 2019 while facing charges that he ran a wide-ranging sex trafficking ring.
🚨BREAKING: A whole minute of video is allegedly MISSING from the 10 hour Epstein Surveillance footage publicly released by the FBI.
Watch the video jump from 11:59:00 PM straight to 12:00:00 AM.
— Derrick Evans (@DerrickEvans4WV) July 7, 2025
Attorney General Pam Bondi attempted to explain the “missing minute” as a feature in the system used by the Bureau of Prisons at the New York City facility at which Epstein was being held.
“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, showing that a minute is missing every night.”
However, tech publication Wired Magazine had initially taken issue with Bondi’s claim that this was raw video data, finding that Adobe Premiere Pro software had been used to stitch together two separate video files.
Then on Tuesday afternoon, the publication revealed that metadata in the video files found that the “missing minute” was actually longer, with one of the files being 2 minutes and 53 seconds longer in its original version than in the edited version released, “indicating that footage appears to have been trimmed before release.”
“It’s unclear what, if anything, the minutes cut from the first clip showed,” the publication noted.
Is it time to simply release all of the Epstein files and let the American people sort it all out?
Metadata is information embedded in a video file which gives information such as when the video was made, who or what it was made by, and how long it is, among other things.
“In response to detailed questions about how the video was assembled, WIRED sent a request for comment to the Department of Justice at 7:40 am on Tuesday morning,” the outlet reported.
“Just two minutes later, Natalie Baldassarre, a public affairs officer for the DOJ, replied tersely: ‘Refer you to the FBI.’ The FBI declined WIRED’s request for comment.”
The Wired report is the latest wrinkle in the first major internecine struggle during President Donald Trump’s second term that doesn’t involve Elon Musk, as many of the president’s supporters — including some within the administration, such as FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino — reportedly furious as what they see as a cover-up.
The FBI determined that there was no Epstein “client list” and that the financier killed himself in 2019 before he could be tried. Sources have indicated that the administration is hesitant to release any “client list” that might exist because it does not differentiate between people who met with Epstein for legitimate purposes and those who might have been plied or blackmailed with women or girls the financier allegedly procured.
This has been complicated, too, by longstanding rumors that Epstein was an intelligence asset, and that government officials had told others to leave him alone.
Speaking during a media briefing in Virginia on Tuesday, Attorney General Bondi denied rumors that she was going to step down over the case.
“I’m going to be here for as long as the president wants me here,” Bondi said, according to the Associated Press. “And I believe he’s made that crystal clear.”
However, it’s unclear whether the latest revelations will cause Bondi or the Department of Justice to release the full unedited videos of Epstein’s prison cell, additional information regarding the financier’s client list, or who edited the video and other Epstein-related evidence.
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