Alleged Epstein Suicide Note Released After Seven Years

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0:36Or what that clunking sound from your dryer is? With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro. You just have to hire one. You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app. Download today. Welcome to The Beat. I'm Ari Melber. We're following this truly unusual government disclosure. A jail note purportedly written by Jeffrey Epstein, linked to his suicide, is now out for the first time after years of being completely secret in the government vault. One of the many developments in this story that has people asking questions tonight, I have a breakdown, factual objective on what we're learning from that note.

1:10That's coming up from the questions about his death to the irregular process overseen, of course, by the Trump DOJ. We begin, though, with the system blinking red. The DOJ has failed to win a single revenge case that Trump has demanded so far. many tossed and facing court setbacks. But the president's barreling forward, heading into the midterms with new calls for likely illegal selective prosecution against his main opponent in these midterms. This is not normal, and we will not treat it like it's normal. We will make sure that people understand that what you see on your screen is a Putin-style crackdown, even if it's failing, and a version of a potential abuse of power to meddle with these midterms.

1:51Trump calling to prosecute Democratic Leader Jeffries. So, as voters assess a choice of who should run Congress, current Speaker Johnson or Democratic Leader Jeffries, Trump is pushing to prosecute the Democrat who would be on track to become Speaker if his party wins. And current polls favor the Democrats, which is worth about as much as polling. We're not there yet, but many Republicans have been retiring and bracing for a loss to the Democrats. I want to be clear here up top, beginning of our news show here, of what this is. Donald Trump is recycling the discredited playbook he's used before.

2:31He's using innuendo and the noise, the suggestion even of a probe, saying, well, somebody's under criminal investigation. Just that. We've seen that have an impact in past cycles to try to muddy an opponent. If it's familiar, remember, this was the stunt he was first impeached for in the first term. feels like a long time ago. Remember, that was about abusing presidential powers to demand another country announce a probe of Biden with someone that he saw, in fact, presciently as a potential opponent in a future election. Now Trump's demanding our own country probe Jeffries over baseless claims that I'm not going to repeat here on the news because we have standards.

3:12Back then, Trump was preparing for, as mentioned, a race possibly against Biden, which is what he got. Now the midterms are a race against, essentially, Jeffries and House Democrats. This is an impeachment-level event, even if Donald Trump at times has gotten everyone sort of inured, tired, fatigued by just how much she does this stuff. And some people say, well, it doesn't work, just move on. Well, the Biden one didn't work either, but it was a whole impeachment over this same playbook. And now the DOJ veteran who prosecuted Trump for other activities in the first term, Jack Smith, warning about a corrupted DOJ.

3:53We have a Department of Justice today that targets people for criminal prosecution simply because the president doesn't like them. We have a department that fails to investigate cases because they might uncover facts that are inconvenient for narratives the president would like to press. That is a careful and respected legal mind there. With broad experience, he's prosecuted members of both parties. He worked in the division of the DOJ that deals with those toughest cases to be politically nonpartisan. So it means something. It's his sharpest criticism of the DOJ since leaving his post, is how the Times put it.

4:35Trump demanding Smith also be prosecuted for that prior work. And the Times says, according to their sources, Smith does expect those charges to likely come. Against this backdrop, we have Pam Bondi's acting replacement asks about these questions and this type of concern, whether it comes from Smith or Obama or others, about Donald Trump doing what they once called lawfare or weaponization, or what legally is sometimes called selective prosecution. You can't just order up Putin-style indictments of your enemies. Look at this exchange. In a recent interview, former President Barack Obama said, and I quote, the White House shouldn't be able to direct the Attorney General to go around prosecuting whoever the President wants to prosecute.

5:24You're the Attorney General. What is your response?

5:30Well, coincidentally, I happen to have, I think, a copy of our Constitution. So if we want, we can read our Constitution together. Article 2 says the executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. It does not say that the Attorney General stands off to the side. That was a silly exchange. I'll just remind everyone, even in Donald Trump's controversial first terms, first term I should say, None of his attorneys general claimed at the time that the president could direct prosecutions of people like the classic current example in other countries that we don't want to be like.

6:15You can't run a Putin style program to muddy or eliminate the opposition. Elections don't work and they're not free and fair. If the sitting leader of Putin or Trump goes around saying, oh, Biden might be the nominee. Let's get a probe opened on him, which is what he asked for in Ukraine. and was impeached though. The people who said that had to be dealt with, that there had to be consequences, they proved to be right because you dealt with it back then. Trump lost the later election, but he's back at the same tactic. And again, I can't underscore this enough. It's not some random Democrat he's picking right now going into midterms that he trails in.

6:53He's going after the face of the Democrats in the midterms, Jeffries. Now, what you see there is Pam Bonney's replacement getting closer to suggesting that maybe that kind of selective prosecution could be okay, as he vaguely quotes the Constitution. It is not okay. It doesn't work still, because while they want you to believe that nothing works anymore, and sometimes I admit, my colleague Rachel Maddow has had several big reports on this, how they have taken apart pieces of the government and made them work less. That's happened. But our courts, actually, and our grand juries, and the citizens who still form the bulwark against this kind of Putin-style abuse, those things are actually working.

7:35Don't take my word for it. It is precisely why that acting attorney general reaching into his pocket like he's just learned how to do prop work, why he has inherited a failing enemies list caseload from the now former attorney general, Pam Bondi. That's what's up, as we say. And I want to bring in our special guest on this important topic, Reverend Sharpton, of course, Politics Nation host on MSNOW, president of National Action Network. And he's worked throughout his career on what equal and fair justice means in the courts. And our counselor, Maya Wiley, of course, former civil prosecutor at SDNY, CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

8:16Maya, I emphasize the link from Jeffries, where there's no basis for prosecution, to Joe Biden, where there was no basis for prosecution. and he got impeached over this kind of move. What does it tell us that some people think this is normalized, even though it still is failing? Well, what it really tells us, particularly about Todd Blanch, is there is a way you audition for a position of power in the Trump administration, and it isn't by paying attention to the Constitution of the United States of America. It's by paying attention to what Donald Trump wants. I mean, that was a bit of theater that he knows well as an attorney.

8:55The U.S. Constitution does not say the executive branch and the executive that is the president has the power of persecution. That would simply say that one article could negate the Bill of Rights. That is not a constitution. And he knows it. But this really goes back to the primary point. You know, this is a time when they are gaslighting the nation about what is normal. But most of us know this is not normal. I mentioned what Obama said, and Smith and Obama hit that same point. Take a look.

9:37The White House shouldn't be able to direct the attorney general to go around prosecuting. If you have the president's prosecuted. Right, because technically it's under the executive branch, but the norm is that it's independent. The idea is that the attorney general is the people's lawyer. It's not the president's consigliere. I think that that is clearly what we're looking at here, that this president is operating as if the attorney general is his consigliere. I also think the danger in this is that we are about to see the country celebrate the 250th anniversary of the country. I thought, you know, I went to public schools in New York, but I thought I learned that they were fighting against King George and this type of dictatorship or this type of ruling.

10:30So it's really against what this country stood for with the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence that is being celebrated in July. The other thing that I think that people should miss, we are talking about a president who is a convicted felon, 34 counts, convicted of sexual abuse in the state courts. And they had to close down Trump University. So if there's any president that shouldn't try to play fast with probes and indictments and investigations, it's one that has been found guilty. And he claimed that he was the object of a political indictment. So it was political when they convicted you, a jury of his peers, not the prosecutor.

11:22The prosecutor prosecuted him, jury of his peers convicted him. But now he's going to turn and have the suspect people be people that were never indicated in any crimes when he's sitting there as the first president in the 250 years of this country that was convicted of crimes before he took office. Right. And what you see is his effort to abuse the system so that people are hurt by these cases, even though they're most of them, as I've said, are already failing. None have won. And people even can lose track, which is why we have our sort of sign of the times chart. I want to show Senator Kelly, who stood up to this and was a brave veteran and all that, and then the chart again.

12:03But first, here's Senator Kelly. Last year, I said something that the president didn't like, that service members need to follow the law. It's literally written into the DOD's Law of War manual. In response, the president said I should be prosecuted and hanged. Then he tried to throw me in jail. And I can't think of anything that's more un-American. And we're living during these times where it's very serious. You look at these charges. I mean, again, on the lower left, Mr. Kelly, who you just heard there, is the senator and his colleagues. That bid failed, Rev, but it was designed to intimidate other bids.

12:52We have Don Lemon, of course, an independent journalist, former CNN, former government officials on the right. Those cases proceed. And so when Trump tries to add Jeffries and others and say to the new attorney general audition, oh, we're going to need to have even more of these, it seems that he thinks he's found a loophole where, to him, losing two years later is still a win if he can mess with this many people. And cost them considerable amounts of money to defend themselves against a probe that is a fishing expedition trying to come up with a case rather than investigate a charge. And when we look at the fact that this is bigger, and I hope the American public understands that, it's bigger than Donald Trump.

13:32This is about how this country is going to run. Because if he's permitted to do this, he's setting a precedent that undermines the very principles that the country stands for. So this is more than those of us that politically disagree with him or disagree with his policies. This is about are we going to be a country where the president has absolute power to go after political enemies for political reasons and tell people to find or manufacture a crime in order to get rid of my enemies rather than having due process, which is what the country claimed to be founded on. Well, I'm going to aim and corner the rev right here.

14:13And I want to add to it because the persecution isn't only people who are in power. The persecution is actually coming from people who protest. I mean, when we consider what's happening right now with the Southern Poverty Law Center and an indictment that we have had former prosecutors, including our own Joyce White Vance, in full disclosure, we were just in a press briefing just a day ago about this indictment, which is beyond flimsy. And even having Vanita Gupta, the former assistant attorney general, say it is an illegitimate prosecution. But what it's about isn't even whether or not you win the conviction.

14:51What it's about is bringing organizations and individuals to court in order to scare others into silence. This is extremely dangerous because it's also coming for the money that resources legitimate advocacy and dissent. And again, to Rev's point about what we are celebrating in this 250th anniversary and coming from the community that is the civil rights community that we come from, we know what it means to come to people on the ground and bring this persecution. And you start with the people in power to try to silence, and then you keep going down the line till you get to ordinary citizens. And to Reverend's point, it won't just stop with us.

15:40Yeah. All very important. Let's not forget this is by a person who pardoned people who really obstructed the the the domain of the U.S. Capitol were at savagely beating property, desecrating furniture there and beating policemen. He pardoned them. They're not criminals. But Hakeem Jeffries, who's had a stellar record or the others, they are suspects. But people that did absolutely reckless, violent acts were given a pardon. All really important. I want to thank Rev and Maya very much. Later in the show, how Trump is losing the comedy wars with Colbert digging in.

16:25No one knows what Donald Trump is thinking. Not even Donald Trump. If he knew what he was thinking, he might let it slip. That's why he keeps his mind perfectly blank. Like nature's most cunning opponent, the goldfish. But first we turn to a story that is absolutely incredible in the sense of also hard to believe. I'm going to walk through this alleged Epstein suicide note, why the government held it for seven years, and a special guest from the Times who helped get it unsealed when we're back in 90 seconds.

17:03a major new development in the long-running Jeffrey Epstein saga, which has already revealed so many government failures, tough questions for the Trump DOJ, the mismanagement that we all saw of Epstein's initial death, the secrecy, and the failures to pursue accountability in many directions. Now we turn to something that is truly unusual. I know in the news and in this recent era, you hear that a lot, but as someone who's practiced law and covered law in the Epstein case, You almost never see something like this. The news tonight here. Seven years after Epstein was found dead, the government has now made this extremely late disclosure of a handwritten note purportedly by Epstein from jail.

17:44We're going to get into this. That is what it looks like. That's the actual handwriting. The Times reports that Epstein's cellmate said he discovered the note in July 2019 after he was found unresponsive with a strip of cloth wrapped around his neck. So to be clear, the note that I'm about to read to you is from around the time that the jail documented Epstein as a potential suicide risk, but not his later death. They put him on suicide watch after he was found injured in his cell in July 2019. And that first incident was significant, because the jail later failed to follow suicide watch rules, and this ended after just six days, and a few weeks later Epstein was found dead.

18:25This is part of our timeline that shows, as you can see, a lot of different events, but specifically, if you look at the very far left point, cellmate tried to kill him. It was the government record of that July account that I'm mentioning here. Government later ruled the death of suicide, but there were so many irregularities as we've reported. Now, in that first incident, recall that Epstein had told staff his cellmate tried to kill him. And that's what government records show. But then later, he also told officers that he didn't really know what occurred. Epstein's cellmate denied it and said Epstein did try to hang himself.

18:58I want to give you that context so you understand exactly what we're reading from, because for the first time, we have a newly revealed document viewed as a potential suicide note from that first incident. This is critical evidence, and it is a scandal that this was held secret for seven years until last night. I have more on that piece of the story, but now with that background, here is the single page evidence. It reads, they investigated me for a month, found nothing. So 16-year-old charges resulted. It is a treat to be able to choose one's time to say goodbye. What you want me to do, bust out crying.

19:39You see that written there? And then at the end in caps, no fun, not worth it. Now, from an investigative or journalistic view, you take a note like this and you reason through it. clearly the tone reflects a negative view of the case and this individual's future. A writer is asserting that they are going to choose how to depart or say goodbye, which reflects a kind of suicidal intent. Now, government sources and the journalists who've looked at this have not been able to corroborate that this note was definitely by Epstein. We don't have, for example, recent forensics or any kind of good chain of custody all these years later.

20:17We can also tell you the note uses similar wording to Epstein's past writings and emails, which of course were not public at the time, and that makes it less likely that a random person in 2019 would be able to replicate his exact speech, unless you think that he talked like that all the time and they overheard it, but it's certainly less likely. We have emails where Epstein used the very phrase, what you want me to do, bust out crime. Another note found in Epstein's jail cell has some similar handwriting, And the all-caps phrase, no fun. That is similar to this note. And again, like any investigation, you say that adds, it bolsters the view that this was really Epstein's handwriting, that he did write this.

21:05It doesn't authenticate it, right? It's not at the level where you say, oh, we have DNA or a video of him writing it, which from an investigative view would be higher corroboration, but this is not some shoddy, easily debunked fake. Now, for the long road to get here, this note was sealed in an unrelated case that involves Epstein's former cellmate. It's only out now because intrepid New York Times journalists pressed to unseal it, and a judge finally did that at the end of the day yesterday. Now, given the conflicting history of the initial July incident, if there was a real note that shows Epstein's intent to take his life, that adds to the evidence of suicide.

21:43Remember, there was a lot of government secrecy and conflicting evidence, as we showed in this death timeline report, that has dogged what was then the Trump DOJ's oversight and also raised questions about how the Biden DOJ dealt with this in a later report. So there's been questions about the cause of his death, and obviously, as I've said before, any legitimate question about whether he actually didn't take his life or there was foul play is a huge deal, one that the Congress ultimately viewed as legitimate in reopening this issue with the Epstein file section that required new material. And then, of course, we had the failed prison protocols and the botched crime scene.

22:23More than six years later, key details of Jeffrey Epstein's death remain unresolved. I'd like to see an investigation to understand how this was permitted to happen. There's a lot that's been wrong with this case from the very first inception to this now embarrassing in custody death. There's some significant questions on how somebody who was such a high-profile defendant could be found dead and how this could have happened. This is not adequate as far as I'm concerned. These are real questions. And the Trump and then later Biden DOJ from our review and a lot of public evidence that we have basically tried to put the questions to rest to wrap this up.

23:04Then the historic, unusual release of the Epstein files, which gave us DOJ internal materials, and of course the emails, revealed more mistakes and secrecy from within the government, starting with the Trump DOJ, including how they mishandled the death scene, shredded documents. All of this was in our timeline before we even got last night's new note. As for the failed protocols, remember, federal guards under the Trump DOJ did not do the nightly inmate checks. They also failed to check fingerprints or DNA tests in the cell after Epstein's death. CBS reporting on that noticeable oversight. I want you to remember the medical examiner did rule this a suicide and cited no evidence of defensive wounds, the kind of thing that you might find if there were foul play.

23:50Only one camera was operating inside the area outside Epstein's cell block. You can see here just one in green, according to the CBS account. and under two administrations, the DOJ ultimately said there wasn't foul play and there weren't any people near Epstein's cell that night. Now, if the government is right about that, if no other person got near him, that would corroborate suicide rather than another person perhaps doing foul play. The only footage we have from the night he died, which was again released in this unusual Epstein files, the government didn't think we'd ever see what you see there, that apparent orange flash, which is suspicious.

24:27It suggests possibly at least a person in orange, typically the inmate attire, was somehow on the loose in that very area at 10.39 p.m., something that the DOJ denied. I want you to also know that suicide, as you see, is there from the sources, but others, including people involved with Epstein's defense, do believe it was foul play. If this long secret note was written by Epstein, it does bolster evidence of at least his suicidal intent in July, weeks before his death. It is remarkable and a problem that the government had this note for this long and for a series of reasons we're going to get into, held it back.

25:10But now we have it. New York Times' Benjamin Weiser is the key reporter on this story and joins us next.

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