Transcription
We're following new documents in the Jeffrey Epstein case and something rare, a top DOJ official testifying about the handling of Epstein, even admitting errors. That was Pam Bondi on Friday.
The new documents are these kind of things. They're not from the direct Epstein files. They're from a related case. And so in this breakdown, I'm going to try to surface kind of share highlights of what the most important information we're learning is from the new stuff, which includes a reference to an alleged Epstein jail note and Pam Bondi, uh, who lost her job partly, uh, among other things, because of concern about Epstein and the handling by DOJ.
I'm Ari Melbourne. I'm a lawyer. I've covered this case extensively. I've got other videos here on my YouTube page if you want to subscribe or check them out. We've done timelines looking at Epstein's abuse, at his links to elites and leaders in both parties, the special treatment that he got, uh the way the past investigations sometimes were blocked or interfered with apparently were diluted, watered down. Uh and so that's sort of my background covering a lot of this.
I'll start with uh the kind of the more intriguing one if you want to talk about new details uh which is these redacted documents. Uh for those who followed the case, the way that Jeffrey Epstein died uh was suspicious and what started as questions being asked by like a few people and investigative reporters and lawyers interested in it uh eventually became a widespread discussion. If you're watching this video, you're you're probably aware of that. I always try to follow the facts and look at the evidence. That's one thing that uh responsible lawyering and journalism have in common. Uh, and so we've done an extensive timeline looking at why the there are valid questions uh and questions of cover up and government misconduct around Epstein's death. Uh, although there hasn't been the kind of smoking gun evidence that makes you say, "Oh, he definitely did not die in custody."
Um, this case uh is really interesting because it involves a person who actually spent more time with him before his death than anyone else, his former cellmate. And if you follow this story, but I'll remind everyone, Epstein at one time said that this cellmate tried to kill him, which is a very noticeable thing for someone who later wound up dead and the government said was a suicide. Uh, but I should note Epstein also then walked that claim back. Now, who was he talking about? Unless you're really deep in this, you probably don't know all the details. And I want to credit some reporting from the British newspaper, The Guardian. This is a new story out late this week uh where they talk about uh some of the backstory and I'm just going to be reading from the Guardian, although this is also backed by other government documents and court cases um where they retire uh they talk about this retired police officer and this is not the kind of officer you want to run into um named Tardigleion and how he lured four men that he had some basically allegedly criminal background disagreements with Um, some of them the Guardian says were tied to the Mexican mafia. This reads like a movie, but it's not. Um, he was angry, among other things, that he believed they had stole over $200,000 from him and he planned this confrontation. So, both sides show up with people. Uh, we see this when you cover a report on criminal enterprises. Sometimes you go, why do they even meet up? But if they have dealings and there's the threat of violence, sometimes there's the idea that a meeting could go towards a solution. I'm putting that very diplomatically. this meeting turned into a quadruple homicide.
Reading from the Guardian, it reports how Tardigani and they say allegedly, as is often the case when you're using court documents and and criminal trial case, uh forced one of the other individuals to watch as he beat and strangled his main adversary named Luna, uh to death with a zip tie. Uh they took his body, the Guardian reports, along with Miguel Luna, Urbano Santiago, and Hector Gutierrez um to an animal sanctuary. Uh then the Guardian reports the three surviving men were forced to kneel and were shot in the head execution style, buried in a mass grave. Nine months later, investigators connected this uh the bodies were unearthed and the property according to a neighbor quote smelled like death. Heavy stuff. And he was later convicted of this. So, while details may be reported as allegedly, uh there was a whole criminal investigation in process. This is what we'd call uh according to the according to the court case and the jury since we're talking about a real bad dude who killed a bunch of people.
Um, why are we talking about him in the context of Epstein? Uh because this individual, Tarleone, excuse me, Tart Tardigleion, I should say, is the one who found the Epstein note written in his handwriting. according to experts and using phrases that only he used that talked about basically taking his own life. And that note only came out within the last month, which is really extraordinary for a case that's this many years old.
Uh couple thoughts as someone who's a a legal journalist and a lawyer myself. Uh if this guy didn't try to kill Epstein and meaning if Epstein was actually just taking his own life and made this up, uh people talk about Epstein was smart and conniving. That was not a smart move. I I would not falsely accuse this guy of anything. Number one. Number two, uh it is striking that someone this dangerous I I mention all those details not just for the puritan interest or the uh the dramatic quality, but it's striking that of all the people they could have put with Epstein, he was one of them. He wasn't the only uh cellmate, but he was one of them. And that's striking.
Um, now, why are we talking about this? You have enough backstory. This is the individual who furnished the note. his lawyers ended up in a dispute with the government about it. So for years the note and some other material was in what I showed you these redacted files some of which were newly released. Um, but in an unredacted portion what's striking is that this defendant now convict that I'm telling you about I'm going to read from the document was talking to his lawyer and it says uh Mr. Tardigleion told corrections officer about this note that only now came out but expressed concerns to the officer that if it was given to the prison officials uh in writ large uh the note would not be properly safeguarded. The officer tacitly agreed. Um that's according to this filing and so there's reporting on that and it doesn't necessarily only go in one direction.
Uh, I've followed this case a lot. Before the note was discovered, there were more and more questions about misconduct, cover-ups at the prison, and the possibility that there was some foul play. Even the later uh watchdog report that was issued by the DOJ when Merrick Garland was attorney general after the Trump officials left, who had overseen some of these uh mistakes and problems at the at the prison. That report diluted, watered down things we only later learned from the Epstein files revelations about misconduct in the in that jail. The possibility that some prisoner was on the loose that night, uh, which they kind of minimize in the report. Again, that's concerning evidence, potential evidence of problems at the prison. Doesn't mean that that prisoner on the loose then magically got into Epstein's cell or killed him or the other queries and theories we've heard, but all of that totaled up and now we get this note. And so I think the best understanding of this is that it was understood by multiple people both inside the government the law that's who you'd want to be following the law and among inmates that this prison had a lot of problems that it wasn't on the level that people were potentially allegedly on the take that rules were bent. Uh the IG report I mentioned that watchdog report did also have passages quoting really reliable sources and a corrections officer who said that Epstein was getting special treatment that officers were afraid of him which is really striking if you think about how how you'd imagine it's supposed to work and then that they were actually afraid of him when they were supervising him and so now all these years later you get the note having said all that if the note is authentic then it adds to evidence that Epstein did take his own life and that the reason he walked back his original claim about this cellmate, this dangerous guy I'm telling you about, is that he may have said that to try to get out from under jail scrutiny. Oh, it was an attack so he wouldn't be on suicide watch so then he could go on to take his own life.
Why does this matter? Well, it makes a big difference whether he actually in the end did take his own life and that there isn't a larger question about a conspiracy to kill him or a government involvement in looking the other way. That's a big difference than than if there was foul play. And so all these years later, the note comes out, having covered cases like this, I don't think I've ever seen evidence this important held back this long years after uh the subject, in this case, Epstein, was dead. So, a lot of questions there, but if the note is valid, it goes more towards supporting the idea that he took his own life. And then you have the allegation of why would the prison want to want to hide it? Well, they may have been in the business of hiding anything that made them look bad. And you're not supposed to, under federal law and rules, allow inmates to take their own life. That itself is a violation, let alone someone as high-profile as Epstein. Uh he also cut other corners. He was able to make phone calls that weren't recorded when all all prisoner calls are supposed to be unless they're with lawyers, that kind of thing. So, that's that.
I want to jump to uh part two. If you're only interested in that, you can log off right now. Part two is Pam Bondi uh going under oath, speaking to Congress. Uh she's the former attorney general who was ousted in the second term. And the big headline there, she didn't give a lot of detail. So I'm not going to make this video longer than it needs to be, but she did admit errors in the redaction and the revelation process. And then she did do something that you don't always see because in politics there's a lot of rules and a lot of teamwork if you're in one team or one administration. But now that she's out, she threw her replacement Todd Blanch under the bus. Um she said this was his thing. She delegated. Uh she talked about the errors. So even though it's unusual sometimes for government officials to admit errors in the agency they run. She was doing that in the service of basically saying my replacement uh look at him pinning the blame on him. Um that's somewhat unusual in the Trump era especially because of all the ways that Trump is so vindictive. He's going after any Republican who even years ago said something. He'll literally try to beat them in primaries, let alone his own former employees. And so that was one of the big headlines Friday. She did say she's deeply sorry for what victims went through. She said there were errors but pinned them on Blanch.
Now I'm reporting to you what she said and this is a appearance that she had initially sort of tried to delay or avoid and so that's the headline out of it. Now is it true? We can tell you contemporaneously back then it's partly true because Bondi initially tried to kind of do a lot of content off Epstein. She famously said on Fox News that she had the client list and these other things. She was making these big promises, writing checks she couldn't cash. Then later under pressure from Trump and others who didn't want to release the thing at all, she said there was no client list and she said there was no evidence of blackmail and the whole thing should be closed. Her failure which was compounded by hyping something as big as this case which a lot of people care about and then not delivering her failure actually probably made the Epstein issue worse for the whole government for Trump as well as for her job. We all know what happened next. Over time we got the biggest revolt against Trump by the Republican Congress on any issue second term. the passage, the Epstein files, veto proof majority, the docs came out. That was part of her unwinding. And so during that period before she was out, we had, and I remember covering them and reading them at the time, letters from the DOJ about the release, letters about uh ultimately when they had to put out the files after that law came out. They were all signed by Todd Blanch. There was an actual We're moving our cameras around here, getting ready for the show, and I'm going to wrap up soon, but there was an actual uh delegation process. And so yes, it's not just her now after the fact blaming him. He was running point on it then. And so on the one hand, she may have thought that by delegating politically and legally, it would kind of put more heat on him and then he'd be the guy with this hot potato. In the end though, she was so discredited by that and other issues and Trump was so mad at her according to a lot of reporting um that her days were probably numbered anyway.
And so now you have something pretty rare, which is the Epstein issue roaring back to life in a way Trump doesn't want and his own top two people running DOJ really blaming and warring with each other. Uh it's another example of how this story, which has touched so many things and led to now people losing their jobs and losing their corporate boards and getting indicted in England and all these things, um how it's a story that just keeps coming back. Um Trump's effort to hide it or to pin people or to fire people doesn't seem to be stopping that. Uh we'll stay on the story. I know that's a lot of details. Hope it was pretty clear. You can always subscribe uh for my reporting and stay informed.