UPDATED: Brief Epstein Update

My default assumption is that Jeffery Epstein committed suicide. However, in the circumstances, anyone who failed to investigate all possibilities would be a complete fool. I like to think I'm not.

What are those possibilities? Obviously foul play is one. The other, however, might encouraged suicide. Government incompetence could play into either one of those scenarios.

Significantly, Undercover Huber is reporting:

Undercover Huber‏
@JohnWHuber 

Reuters has a source telling them Epstein was still on suicide watch as recently as Thursday and procedures to check on Epstein every 30 minutes were not followed overnight  

12:23 PM - 10 Aug 2019

We're also told that video surveillance wasn't operational at the relevant time. However I find the report that Epstein was removed from suicide watch to be important.

The Reuters report--if UC Huber is correct--is contradicted by the NYT, but only as to the timing of Epstein's removal from the suicide watch. The NYT puts the removal at just six days after Epstein's reported suicide attempt on July 29th--although the claim that the previous incident was an actual suicide attempt is disputed. The Daily Mail reports that Epstein told guards weeks before he hanged himself that someone tried to KILL HIM.

One way or another, Epstein was removed from the suicide watch very shortly after being placed on it. That doesn't just happen. According to the NYT:

Inmates can only be removed from the watch when the program coordinator, who is generally the chief psychologist at the facility, deems they are no longer at imminent risk for suicide, according a 2007 Bureau of Prison document outlining suicide prevention policies. The inmates cannot be removed from the watch without a face-to-face psychological evaluation.

To take an inmate off suicide watch, a “post-watch report” needs to be completed, which includes an analysis of how the inmate’s circumstances have changed and why that merits removal from the watch, the document said.

That amounts to proving a negative. It would seem far easier and uncontroversial to simply leave an inmate like Epstein--the most notorious prisoner in the country, widely reported to be at risk of either suicide or murder--on the suicide watch. There would be no downside to doing so. Therefore the normal rules of bureaucratic conduct would seem to dictate not removing Epsteing from the watch list--especially when you have to put the reasons for doing so in writing and sign off on it.

And one last consideration. While I have argued in the past that Epstein's prior plea deal should not preclude the current prosecution, that doesn't mean that it was an open and shut case. There was a very real possibility that the current case would be dismissed and Epstein would be released. Why commit suicide when you have a real chance of going free? It wasn't as if Epstein wouldn't have been able to stand being publicly shamed. So that doesn't add up, either.

All in all, Bill Barr is right to be appalled and livid. Will Chamberlain summarizes the situation in neutral terms, which makes it all the more damning:

Usually, Occam’s razor suggests that the “conspiratorial” explanation for a shocking event is the less likely one. Not so here. Assembling an innocent explanation of Epstein’s death requires assuming a staggering amount of incompetence on the part of MCC Manhattan staff. Despite a near-miss on July 30, they would have had to innocently give their most infamous and high-profile criminal defendant the means and opportunity to kill himself, and in doing so, utterly fail at their most basic responsibilities.

Barr is right to order an FBI investigation. Oh, and he's also right to order an OIG investigation as well. Just in case.

UPDATE: Blogger Ann Althouse notes the MSM effort--especially the NYT--to tamp down all "conspiracy theory." With continuing revelations of high level Russia Hoax conspiracies--even on an international level--that gets ever more difficult to do. Kinda like pushing on a string at this point:

Are the conspiracy theories "unfounded"? I've noticed that the NYT seems to be trying to squelch any doubt that Epstein killed himself (and killed himself without any support/encouragement from anyone else). There are no comments allowed on this new article, and I noticed that an earlier NYT article about the Epstein death had a lot of comments, and the highly rated ones doubted that it was suicide. 

Compare The Washington Post, where the top headline on the home page is: "Questions mount over Epstein’s apparent suicide." The NYT doesn't have "apparent" before suicide and doesn't use a generic, conspiracy-supporting phrase like "Questions mount." The NYT directs us to think that the questions should be about prison procedures and overworked prison staff.

UPDATE 2: I'm seeing reporting that there's no video of Epstein's cell at the time of his death. Also:

Tom Fitton
@TomFitton

"when the decision was made to remove Mr. Epstein from suicide watch, the jail informed the Justice Department that Mr. Epstein would have a cellmate and that a guard 'would look into his cell' every 30 minutes. But that was apparently not done.."

9:11 AM - 11 Aug 2019

IOW, DoJ was staying on top of the situation but was lied to.


UPDATE 3: Exactly:

Will Chamberlain
@willchamberlain

All jokes aside, the theory that the Clintons had Jeffrey Epstein killed is far more plausible than the theory that our billionaire real estate magnate-turned-President is actually a Russian agent.
And the media ran with the latter theory for two years.

6:22 AM - 11 Aug 2019