A Flustered Pam Bondi Attempts to Clarify the Missing Minute from the Epstein Surveillance Footage

Attorney General Pam Bondi was asked by reporters Tuesday about Jeffrey Epstein, causing President Donald Trump, who was sitting near her at the White House, to become indignant that anyone was still asking about the sex offender who was found dead in a jail cell in 2019. Bondi gave a very confusing response about both her past comments on Epstein and a one-minute gap in the video released by the U.S. Department of Justice. But only after Trump berated the reporter for even asking about Epstein in the first place.

The reporter asked Bondi about rumors that Epstein had worked for either a U.S. intelligence agency or some kind of foreign agency, as well as that mysterious gap in the video surveillance tape, which doesn’t seem to make much sense. Trump chimed in before Bondi could answer.

“Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy has been talked about for years. You’re asking… we have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things, we…” Trump said referring to the devastating floods in Texas before trailing off. “And are people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is unbelievable. Do you want to waste the time? Do you feel like answering?”

Bondi replied that she didn’t mind answering before Trump started up with his rambling again.

“I mean, I can’t believe you’re asking a question on Epstein at a time like this, where we’re having some of the greatest success and also tragedy with what happened in Texas. It just seems like a desecration. But you go ahead,” Trump said before finally letting Bondi speak.

Bondi first addressed the interview she did on Fox News back in February where she was asked about any “client list” that Epstein may have had.

“I was asked a question about the client list. And my response was, ‘It’s sitting on my desk to be reviewed,’ meaning the file along with the JFK, MLK files as well. That’s what I meant by that,” Bondi said.

She then went on to say that the “tens of thousands of video” (perhaps meaning to say tens of thousands of hours of video) was actually “child porn downloaded by that disgusting Jeffrey Epstein.” Many people have insisted there must have been security or hidden camera footage from Epstein’s homes that would implicate powerful people in sex acts with children. Bondi heavily suggested that no such videos exist and said any child sexual abuse material would not be released.

“To him being an agent, I have no knowledge about that. We can get back to you on that,” Bondi said before the Attorney General addressed the missing minute from the Epstein video. And it’s pretty confusing.

“We released the video showing definitively… the video was not conclusive, but the evidence prior to it was, showing he committed suicide,” Bondi said. “And what was on that… there was a minute that was off the counter. And what we learned from Bureau of Prisons was every year… every, um, night they redo that video. It’s old, it’s from like 1999.”

Bondi appears to be saying the video system dates to 1999 though it’s not entirely clear why that would leave a one-minute gap in a video.

“So every night the video is reset,” Bondi continued. “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.”

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVFnE555JHI[/embed]

The missing minute of the video is very odd and has done nothing to tamp down conspiracy theories that Epstein didn’t actually kill himself in jail. As you can see in the video below, clipped from the almost 11 hours of video released by the DOJ, the timestamp jumps from 11:58:58 p.m. on August 9, 2019. to 12:00:00 a.m.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoG2NXW5IxU[/embed]

The Department of Justice didn’t answer Gizmodo’s questions emailed on Monday about the missing minute but sent an email after this White House media event that read, “The AG just addressed this at the Cabinet meeting.”

Gizmodo replied with more questions about whether the missing minute of video is always the last minute of each day and whether that’s true across all Bureau of Prisons facilities. We’ll update this post if we get any answers.