The fallout from Sunday’s release of a joint memo from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) concluding there is no evidence disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein blackmailed powerful figures, kept a “client list,” or was murdered behind bars shows no signs of slowing down.
Critics from across the political spectrum are demanding answers, but the Trump administration’s response to the situation only seems to be raising more questions. Case in point: President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi’s comments during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Tuesday about the relevance of the story and newly released video footage from the prison Epstein was being held at the time of his death.
On Tuesday’s show, Megyn was joined by the hosts of the RealClearPolitics podcast – Tom Bevan, Carl Cannon, and Andrew Walworth – to discuss the bizarre new details in the case and why they are only causing more confusion.
The Fallout
In an apparent effort to end the ongoing saga surrounding Epstein’s life and death, Axios obtained a leaked two-page memo from the DOJ and FBI late Sunday with a series of conclusions. Among them, Epstein died by suicide and there was no foul play.
The memo stated that determination is supported by video footage from the common area of the Special Housing Unit (SHU) of the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City where Epstein was found dead in his cell on August 10, 2019.
“As DOJ’s Inspector General explained in 2023, anyone entering or attempting to enter the tier where Epstein’s cell was located from the SHU common area would have been captured by this footage,” the memo read. “The FBI’s independent review of this footage confirmed that from the time Epstein was locked in his cell at around 10:40 pm on August 9, 2019, until around 6:30am the next morning, nobody entered any of the tiers in the SHU.”
The FBI released what it called “the full raw and enhanced videos” of the time period along with the memo, but the footage quickly came under fire for what eagle-eyed viewers felt were jump cuts.
Trump Interjects
That topic was raised by a reporter at Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, which led to a fascinating exchange with President Trump and Attorney General Bondi. “Your memo released yesterday… left some lingering mysteries… Can you say why there was a minute missing from the jailhouse tape on the night of his death,” the reporter asked.
Bondi began to answer the question before she was interrupted by the president. “Pam, can I just interrupt for one second,” Trump interjected. “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? 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… 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.”
Megyn said the White House seems to have been caught somewhat flat footed in its response to the very predictable interest in the Epstein case that is largely driven by Bondi’s own teases about being in possession of damaging material. “President Trump had the same problem there that Karoline Leavitt had yesterday. The dodge should not be obvious. It should be subtle. It should be deftly worked into a more substantive answer,” she explained. “It shouldn’t be, ‘Hold on. I want to answer that before you answer that, my underling. Why are you interested in Jeffrey Epstein and that old story?'”
The Missing Minute
And while Trump gave Bondi an out to not answer the question, she chose to do so anyway and ended up revealing a shocking detail about the jailhouse footage:
“…The minute missing from the video. We released the video showing definitively– the video was not conclusive, but the evidence prior to it was showing he committed suicide. And what was on that, there was a minute that was off the counter. And what we learned from Bureau of Prisons was… every night, they redo – that video is 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.”
In Megyn’s view, nothing Bondi said offered any sort of clarification; in fact, Walworth believes all the AG did was leave the door open for more speculation. “I think it certainly makes that minute more interesting… because I think I understood exactly what [she was] saying, which is that this is standard operating procedure that there is a minute before midnight that isn’t taped every night,” he noted. “So, the accusation isn’t that someone eliminated a minute before midnight. It is almost worse. It is like, ‘Oh, they know that there is one minute every night.’ I mean, this is cat nip for conspiracy.”
Cannon joked that even someone like himself who is not all that interested in conspiracy theories cannot ignore the implications. “This is a mess… I’m even less of a conspiracy theorist than you are. I just assume that sophisticated conspiracies by evil actors with hundreds of people in on it? No. Incompetent people who then covered their ass? Yes,” he explained. “But why would she just say that? Why would she say that that minute is not taped every night?”
He believes the Trump DOJ and FBI just created a new question that needs answering. “Now we know people who worked in the prison would know about this weird thing that you are not taping for a minute… They were the only people who would know that,” Cannon said. “Can you kill a guy in a minute? I guess we will find out.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Bevan, Cannon, and Walworth by tuning in to episode 1,103 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.