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Newly released documents amusement the FBI's scramble to explicate past twelvemonth wherefore it released a surface signaling with a missing minute from the nighttime Jeffrey Epstein died, alternatively of the archetypal footage.
The discrepancy fueled conspiracy theories astir a cover-up aft then-Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino promised the bureau would merchandise the archetypal surveillance footage from Epstein's Manhattan jailhouse "so you don't deliberation determination are immoderate shenanigans." The FBI has ne'er offered a nationalist mentation of however it ended up releasing a video with a spread successful footage.
Last May, arsenic a groundswell built demanding nationalist scrutiny of the Justice Department's records connected Epstein, the bureau ran into a problem: it had already destroyed its maestro transcript of surveillance video from Epstein's last hours successful the Metropolitan Correctional Center.
An FBI cause sought and was granted successful June 2024 authorization to destruct an grounds point labeled 1B60, describing it arsenic an grounds "no longer pertinent" to the case.
That item, according to a papers among the Epstein files, was the maestro signaling of "tapes containing the archive of [Manhattan Correctional Center] video images." It had been stored successful a Bronx warehouse.
In February 2025, an cause explained successful a antithetic papers the justification for destroying the video.
"As this lawsuit was already closed and [redacted prosecutor's name] concurred connected 08/26/2024 with bureau grounds handling procedures, authorization was granted to destruct Item 1B60," the cause wrote. "Per FBI policy, if an grounds point remains undisposed, the investigative lawsuit record indispensable stay open."
But by mid-2025, the Justice Department needed the destroyed grounds reconstructed. That launched a analyzable scramble to rebuild the video files, according to documents included among the millions released truthful acold successful what person go known arsenic the Epstein files.
A "high-level overview" of the steps taken to bash truthful was compiled successful July by an FBI integer forensics and analytics conception chief.
The effort progressive obtaining different transcript of the footage that remained stored crossed 2 files connected a NiceVision integer video recorder, the strategy utilized successful the jail. One of the video files started astatine 7:40 p.m. The different started astatine 12 a.m. and ended astatine 6:40 a.m. On May 21, 2025, an cause utilized a surface seizure instrumentality to re-record the footage from NiceVision.
But 62 seconds of footage couldn't beryllium captured, leaving a spread from 11:58 and 58 seconds, to 12:00.
Soon aft the video was released successful July, members of the nationalist noticed it jumped from astir 11:59 to midnight. Rather than explicate that the footage had been pieced unneurotic from a copy, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the crushed for the spread was that the situation signaling strategy had a nightly reset resulting successful a mislaid infinitesimal each night.
"There was a infinitesimal that was disconnected that counter, and what we learned from Bureau of Prisons was each year, each night, they redo that video," Bondi said connected July 8, noting that the strategy was old. "Every nighttime is reset, truthful each nighttime should person that aforesaid missing minute. So we're looking for that video arsenic well, to amusement it's missing each night."
It appears Bondi had accepted a speculative decision summarized by the conception chief, that the strategy reset nightly, losing that minute. It's a mentation that appears to person been unverified.
"The Video Specialist theorized the NiceVision systems astatine this clip required clip to constitute files and caused a existent clip hold successful what is recorded resulting successful a spread of clip not recorded close earlier midnight," the conception main wrote. "The Video Specialist was incapable to trial the accuracy of his theory."
Experts told CBS News successful July that the clip hold mentation was implausible. None of the information strategy specialists CBS News spoke with had heard of a strategy that had that issue.
The Justice Department has not replied to questions astir the video files.
An FBI specializer tried to merge the surface recordings utilizing the video editing bundle Adobe Premiere, but "Adobe Premiere did not enactment with the video record format the surface seizure was created in," the conception main wrote.
The specializer past utilized bundle called Fast Forward Moving Picture Expert Group "to person the files to a format susceptible to ingest into Adobe Premiere."
That signifier led to 1 much evident discrepancy discovered past twelvemonth by Wired, which "found that 1 of the root clips was astir 2 minutes and 53 seconds longer than the conception included successful the last video, indicating that footage appears to person been trimmed earlier release."
The Wired investigation was correct. The conception main called it "standard practice" erstwhile doing a surface seizure to see "padding" to the end, other signaling clip that tin beryllium pared back.
"When the surface signaling was brought into Adobe Premiere the padding was trimmed," the conception main wrote. Wired pointed retired that the archetypal video record utilized successful the surface seizure was the 1 with "padding." It ended astatine 11:58:58, "which suggests the 2 (clips) would overlap."
A CBS News probe published successful July 2025 noted a displacement successful the video's appearance, known arsenic its facet ratio, aft midnight.
The conception main explained "the facet ratio of the record was besides corrected to make a much earthy appearance."
The afloat footage, including the missing minute, was made nationalist by Congress successful September. It showed that thing notable oregon antithetic appeared connected the signaling during that minute.
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