The chairman and ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee are seeking answer related to accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s apparent suicide death while he was in federal custody over the weekend.
Jesus, everyone is an “acting” director…
I just read on Huffington Post that the prison guard was “a fill-in who had been pressed into service because of staffing shortfalls.”
Just appropriate for an “Acting President” who couldn’t act presidential if his life depended on it
Not to worry. The Attorney General is on it.
And by ‘it’ I mean ‘the cover-ups’ of both Epstein’s death and any involvement Trump had in the activities for which he became infamous.
Barr was ultimately in charge of his incarceration (DOJ controls federal BOP) and prosecution (having un-recused himself from the case), and now Barr controls the federal investigative materials (which he can choose whether and which to share with the attorneys representing Epstein’s victims in civil cases).
I’m sure this will all be totally transparent and we can all have faith in the process and outcomes (and who has earned our faith and trust, if not Bill Barr).
“Epstein, a billionaire political financier with ties to President Trump and even former President Bill Clinton, was found hanging in his jail cell Saturday where he was awaiting trial for charges related to allegedly running a sex trafficking ring with underage girls in the early 2000s.”
He was found “hanging” in his jail cell? The early 2000s? Not after that at all? A lot of assumptions in this little piece.
We have no way of knowing if this death was the result of gross incompetence that allowed him to commit suicide, murder, or something akin to assisted suicide. Worse, we have no reason to trust anything the DOJ says on the subject.
The way Barr is punching down, my guess is a couple of guards are going to be fired amid some “too bad, so sad” yammering from their superiors.
Barr isn’t going to come out of this unscathed. He actually refused to recuse himself in this case even though he had several conflicts related to Epstein. He basically said “I need to be in charge of this case” when he shouldn’t have been.
I doubt this debacle will bring him down, but it will definitely hurt him.
But I thought Trump and KellyAnne already steered us in the direction of the responsible parties - despite the fact that the federal prison system is part of the federal government run by Trump and his ‘acting’ or ‘acting out’ officials. Barr saying he’s appalled reminds me of the end of Casablanca - he’s ‘shocked, shocked’ to find our there was a clear dereliction of duty in the jails that allowed Epstein to have the means and opportunity to complete the suicide he tried for earlier in July.
Gee, how convenient…putting someone on the job who doesn’t know what they’re doing. Built-in excuse for the anticipated “oops.”
The only thing Republicans want to know is whether Bill or Hillary ordered the hit
He says “more flexibility” but what he means is “more leverage”…keeps 'em hoping that if they bow and scrape and bend/break the law enough, they’ll get the real job.
They’re all too stupid to look at precendents to see it ain’t gonna happen.
Wrong line from Casablanca -
[Inspector Renault] - “I’m making out the report now. We haven’t quite decided whether he committed suicide or died trying to escape.”
Jebus … for all their theoretical oversight authority they sure say please alot.
While it certainly seems convenient for many powerful people, I think we all need to have a realistic summary of what actually happens in a facility like he was in. Suicide attempts by other inmates? Staffing competence and shortages (are staff overworked)? The limits of suicide watch? Was Epstein getting more or less attention than other inmates?
I recognize that I’m just some person reading scattered stories about one person in a system I know very little about. I shouldn’t begin to assume what is expected and normal procedure over there when trying to put this event in the larger Epstein narrative.
It is much easier to be President of a Banana Republic than a real country.
Or maybe they do know what they’re doing… Try as I might to resist the conspiracy theories, there’s something beyond mere incompetence that puts a stink on this whole affair.
Speaking for myself, I think what stinks is that Epstein was one of the, if not the, most visible and high-profile prisoners there. And only a couple of weeks ago there was an incident which was considered to be either a suicide attempt or a possible attack.
People were watching Epstein closely. Anything happening to him would automatically generate massive headlines, so one would assume/expect the authorities there would make extra efforts to ensure exactly what happened did not happen. But instead, they assign some poor interim schmuck…
(Not arguing whether this is right or fair vis à vis other prisoners, it’s just pragmatic…)
This is gonna stink for a long, long time – I am not certain the interim schmoe “knew” but I would easily buy that one level up knew…
Of course, once who know who the interim person is, and that will come out, there may be more to read into it.