The federal government has a full version of the surveillance tape from the night Jeffrey Epstein died—one that doesn’t have the now-infamous “missing minutes.”
That’s right: while the Department of Justice gave the public a version of the prison footage with up to three minutes of time mysteriously gone, the FBI, the Bureau of Prisons, and the DOJ inspector general all have a version that’s fully intact. CBS News broke that bombshell.
No one’s saying what’s in that missing minute. No one’s explaining why it was cut. The FBI, DOJ, and Bureau of Prisons all declined to comment or claimed they had “no additional information to provide.”
As noted by The Daily Beast, Metadata from the released video shows it was edited—repeatedly—and cuts out right before midnight on August 9, 2019, the night Epstein died inside the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York.
But sources now confirm that the full footage—unedited and uncut—does exist and is sitting with federal authorities.
Earlier this month, the DOJ released nearly 11 hours of footage to prove Epstein died by suicide. But almost immediately, people noticed something odd: the timecode skipped. The moment leading up to midnight—about one minute—was missing. That’s the critical window where someone might have entered Epstein’s unit.
The DOJ insisted the tape was “full raw footage” that would have captured anyone heading toward Epstein’s cell. But that’s clearly not true.
And now, people are asking: Why was the version released to the public altered?
Attorney General Pam Bondi tried to brush it off. “The system resets every night,” she said. “So every night should have that same missing minute.” But she didn’t provide any backup footage showing that to be true. Surveillance experts told CBS that’s not how most systems work anyway.
And there’s more.
The camera outside Epstein’s actual cell? It wasn’t working. It’s unclear whether it was turned off or disabled in some other way. The footage released only shows a hallway near the Special Housing Unit. Epstein’s cell is off-camera. Only a staircase and general common area are visible.
The FBI claimed that anyone entering Epstein’s tier would have been seen on this camera. But Julie K. Brown—the Miami Herald journalist whose work exposed Epstein’s crimes—says that’s not the whole story.
“It’s quite possible that someone from another part of that area could have gone up into his cell,” Brown told CNN. “We don’t know because we don’t have anything on his cell door. The doors they show in that video are not of his cell.”
It’s a damning admission—and raises real questions about whether Epstein was left alone, or if someone else reached him unseen.
The whole controversy has put the Trump administration back under fire. Earlier this month, the DOJ and FBI issued a memo declaring Epstein had no “client list” and died by suicide. Many of Trump’s supporters were furious, expecting major revelations.
And Trump himself? He changed his tune. He once claimed he cut ties with Epstein because he was a “creep.” Now he says it was because Epstein “stole” his staff.
As for Epstein’s infamous private island, Trump told reporters: “I never had the privilege of being there.”
But with the FBI holding the real tape—and the public left with an edited version—the questions won’t stop. Who had access to that wing? Why was the footage altered? And what, exactly, does the “missing minute” show?
The tape exists. The public just hasn’t seen it.
