On Monday’s episode of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” Shapiro discusses how negligence in the jail where billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein was being held likely contributed to his death rather than some sort of assassination attempt, as many have theorized. Video and partial transcript below:
MSNBC’s Joy Reid actually suggested that Attorney General William Barr might be covering up Epstein’s death at Trump’s behest because Trump of course is friends with Jeffrey Epstein.
REID: The investigation of Epstein’s death now falls into the hands of William Barr, Donald Trump’s consigliere and attorney general, who refused to recuse himself on the Epstein case despite his association with a law firm once involved with Epstein, [and] whose father once hired Jeffrey Epstein as a teacher — with neither experience nor degree. And, whose prime directive is to protect Donald Trump no matter what.
Okay, so there she is putting out her own conspiracy theory. Then, President Trump in his own inimitable fashion decided, “You know what’d be a a great idea? I’m going to retweet whatever I feel like, and I feel like retweeting a wild conspiracy theory.” So he retweeted a tweet from a guy named Terrance Williams on Twitter and the tweet says: “Died of SUICIDE on 24/7 SUICIDE WATCH ? Yeah right! How does that happen#JefferyEpstein had information on Bill Clinton & now he’s dead[.] I see #TrumpBodyCount trending but we know who did this! [Retweet] if you’re not Surprised#EpsteinSuicide #ClintonBodyCount #ClintonCrimeFamily.”
And then he released a little video discussing why he thought that the Clintons had murdered Jeffrey Epstein.
Now, this has been a longstanding meme on the right, that the Clintons routinely murder their political opponents. Not a lot of evidence to suggest that that is true despite widespread speculation about characters, including Vince Foster, for example. President Trump tweeted that out, and that was awkward. Here’s a little bit of that Terrance Williams video in which he talks about all of this.
WILLIAMS: Shaking my head. I’m not surprised. I told ya’ll last month this was gonna happen but didn’t nobody want to listen to me. But then guess what. Next month he dead. And you know what, all the liberals were calling me a conspiracy theorist saying that, “Terrence, you coming out with crazy conspiracies and you need to be banned from Twitter.” And then guess what. The man really ended up dead. And you know what he had. He had information on the Clintons and the man ended up dead.
Okay that’s enough. So Trump actually retweeted that. Now, number one: this wasn’t the Clintons because, as we will see, this is wild incompetence by jail officers which, frankly, is not all that uncommon. I mean, it is an unfortunate truth of life that human beings are wildly incompetent generally. And it is also another unfortunate truth that treatment in American prisons — [I mean], it depends on the prison but many prisons are horribly run. The guards don’t do their jobs to the apex of their abilities. They feel like they’re dealing with criminals and therefore they sort of slack off a bit. That’s not an indictment of all prison officers by any measure — a lot of prison officers, probably the vast majority of prison officers, do their job with honor and diligence. But there are going to be some who do not, obviously. And this one falls under Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malevolence that which you can attribute to human stupidity.
And while this all looks very suspicious — because obviously Epstein was the most watched federal prisoner in America — still, I am much more inclined to chalk this up to prison guards didn’t do their job, than Bill and Hillary Clinton sneaked somebody into Jeffrey Epstein’s cell to kill him. I mean, the lady couldn’t even find Wisconsin on a map. I don’t think that this has to do with Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton deciding that it’s time for Jeffrey Epstein to be offed. Why wouldn’t they off him before he was arrested? I mean, the whole thing doesn’t make any sense. And, as it turns out, there’s lots of evidence of incompetence here.
Apparently, according to The Associated Press, “guards on Jeffrey Epstein’s unit were working extreme overtime shifts to make up for staffing shortages the morning of his apparent suicide, a person familiar with the jail’s operations told The Associated Press. The person said that the Metropolitan Correctional Center’s Special Housing Unit was staffed with one guard working a fifth straight day of overtime and another who was working mandatory overtime. The person wasn’t authorized to discuss jail operations publicly and spoke Sunday on the condition of anonymity. Epstein’s abrupt death cuts short a criminal prosecution that could have pulled back the curtain on the inner workings of a high-flying financier with connections to celebrities and presidents … ”
The jail staff failed to follow protocols leading up to Epstein’s death, according to a report from The New York Times, deepening the fallout from what led to his apparent suicide. New York Times reports that “Epstein was supposed to have been checked by the two guards in the protective housing unit every 30 minutes” [and that] he was alone in his cell just eleven days after he’d been taken off suicide watch.
That was not supposed to happen. He was supposed to have somebody else in the cell with him. The procedure of him being checked every 30 minutes was not followed that night. Because Epstein may have tried to commit suicide three weeks earlier — obviously, that other inmate was supposed to be in there. But the jail [had] recently transferred his cellmate and allowed Epstein to be housed alone, a decision that also violated the jail’s procedures.
Attorney General William Barr was fighting mad about that today as well. He suggested that there could be prosecution on the table for negligence for some of the people who are associated with all of this. In addition, according to the UK Daily Mail, every 15 minutes guards are required to make another check on prisoners who are on suicide watch. The decision to remove Epstein from suicide watch has both baffled former wardens and veterans of the federal prison system alike. As Matt Walsh of Daily Wire pointed out, suicide watch is not supposed to be taken quite so literally. You’re not actually supposed to watch while the person commits suicide. So, well done everybody.