Convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide, according to FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino.
The FBI chiefs confirmed Epstein’s cause of death during a joint interview with Fox News on Sunday.
Patel said that he was confident that Epstein killed himself, while also acknowledging that others may believe something suspicious actually happened to him at the New York detention facility in 2019.
“They have their right to their opinion but as someone who has worked as a public defender, as a prosecutor who’s been in that prison system, who’s been in the Metropolitan Detention Center, who’s been in segregated housing, you know a suicide when you see one, and that’s what that was,” Patel told Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo.
Bongino agreed with Patel’s statement that Epstein died by suicide.
“He killed himself … I have seen the whole file,” Bongino added during the interview. “He killed himself.”
In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges in Florida of soliciting a prostitute and procuring a minor for prostitution, which was part of a plea deal. He was initially sentenced to 18 months in jail but served just 13 months in prison, leaving the jail almost every day as part of a work release deal.
Epstein was found dead in his cell on Aug. 10, 2019, as he awaited trial on federal charges that he allegedly orchestrated a sex trafficking ring with his longtime partner and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell.
Epstein, who owned a large private island in the Caribbean and a private jet, was known to be well-connected and socialized with many powerful and wealthy public figures.
The OIG ultimately concluded that staff provided Epstein the opportunity to kill himself by failing to assign him a cellmate the day before his death, allowing him to have more linens than were normal, and not monitoring him for long periods of time.
Under Trump’s tenure, Attorney General Pam Bondi has long pledged to release the so-called “Epstein files,” including a flight log and possible client list.
In February, Bondi declassified and publicly released the initial trove of files related to Epstein and his sexual exploitation of more than 250 underage girls at his homes in New York, Florida, and other locations. It included a contact book and masseuse list, both of which were heavily redacted. The first phase of those files contained documents that were previously leaked but never formally released by the federal government.
