On 19 November 2019 Senators Lindsey Graham, Ben Sasse, and John Kennedy confront Federal Bureau of Prisons Director Kathleen Sawyer over the mysterious death of Jeffrey Epstein. With sharp questions and public outrage mounting, the senators demand accountability and transparency, highlighting that the American people deserve answers about the circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death.
00:00As I indicated in my opening statement, I wanted to talk about the death of Mr. Epstein.
00:05Do you concur with the opinion that it was a suicide?
00:11That was the finding of the coroner, sir.
00:13Okay, do you have any evidence to suggest otherwise?
00:15I do not.
00:16How could this have happened?
00:19Unfortunately, sir, the death and the whole situation is still under the investigation of the FBI and the Inspector General's office,
00:26and I'm really not at liberty to discuss specifics of this case.
00:31I can discuss issues around institutional operations, but I can't specifically talk about that particular issue.
00:38Okay.
00:39With a case this high profile, there's got to be either a major malfunction of the system or a criminal enterprise at foot to allow this to happen.
00:49So are you looking at both?
00:51Is the FBI looking at both?
00:53If the FBI is involved, then they are looking at criminal enterprise, yes.
00:56Do we have people in custody today of this high profile nature?
01:02Have we done anything to adjust since Mr. Epstein's death?
01:06Sir, we take every inmate's life very seriously in the Bureau of Prisons.
01:10A high profile inmate is no more important or significant in terms of our operations than just the average inmate that comes our way.
01:17What do I mean high profile?
01:17Somebody's on a suicide watch.
01:20I would like to explain our suicide watch system, if I may.
01:22I can't talk specifically about Epstein, but we have different tiers of response if we identify an inmate who appears to have suicidal thinking.
01:31And I came into the Bureau as a psychologist.
01:32I've worked with lots of suicidal inmates.
01:34I was a warden at our psychiatric facility in Butner, and I know how difficult it is to always be able to predict who is suicidal and who is not.
01:40But once an inmate is identified as potentially suicidal, we have a suicide watch operation that we can place them in.
01:46It's a very stark, very difficult setting where everything is stripped from the room except a mattress.
01:51They get a coarse gown like to wear that cannot be twisted in any way that they could hang themselves from it.
01:57They have one mattress and one blanket, and they are watched constantly.
02:00There's nothing else in that room.
02:01Is Mr. Epstein on suicide watch?
02:03Yes, he watched.
02:04However, the average time on suicide watch is only about 24 hours because it is such a stark and actually depressing situation.
02:11We then can move them to another tier of observation, which is called psychological observation.
02:16Did that happen in this case?
02:17I can't speak specifically, but I am sharing this with you so that you understand our procedure, sir.
02:22They then can move to another tier, which is psychological observation, where they get their clothes back.
02:28They're in a more normalized setting.
02:30They are watched and scrutinized every moment of the day, but that is a much more normal environment.
02:35Do they have roommates?
02:36And once, I'm sorry, sir?
02:38Do they have roommates?
02:39No, they do not when they're on psychological observation because they're being watched continuously.
02:42Did Mr. Epstein have a roommate when he allegedly committed suicide?
02:46No, he did not.
02:47Okay.
02:48Go ahead.
02:50They move into psychological observation.
02:52Psychologists see them routinely, interview them repeatedly,
02:55and once it's determined that the threat of suicide seems to have passed,
03:01then that inmate can be returned back to open population.
03:05Well, clearly, it didn't work here, so we await the report because all the victims of Mr. Epstein have to have their heart ripped out.
03:15I still never see justice.
03:16Dr. Sawyer, can you think of any other incidents in the history of the BOP that have caused as much crisis for public trust for your institution as Epstein's death?
03:27I can only speak for the, since 1976 when I joined the Bureau, I don't know prior to that,
03:33but I would say it's probably gotten the most public attention.
03:36There are lots of taxpayers and citizens who've never thought about the BOP,
03:39and you have lots of good, patriotic, hard-working folks there.
03:42I get that.
03:43But in terms of a crisis of public trust in general, but also in terms of your workforce,
03:48this death happened in the middle of August, early August.
03:51It's Thanksgiving, and you're here to testify today, and you say you're not allowed to speak about this incident.
03:56I think that's crazy.
03:58Can you distinguish among types of investigations, at least for us?
04:01Because I'm aware of at least three Epstein investigations.
04:03You get a whole bunch of women who were raped by this guy.
04:06This is a sex trafficking ring in the United States.
04:10This guy had evidence.
04:11He's got co-conspirators, and there are victims out there who want to know where the evidence has gone.
04:17Can you tell us a little bit more about the different investigations?
04:20I understand there's at least one that you're directed by Maine Justice not to speak about,
04:24but there are at least three investigations.
04:26Can you unpack them, please?
04:27There are two investigations that are ongoing.
04:29One is the FBI's investigation, and the other is the Inspector General's investigation.
04:33Both inside BOP, but there's a third one outside, which is why Epstein was in your institution to begin with.
04:38Yeah, and that, sir, is completely out of my...
04:41I get that.
04:42There's a lot here where DOJ has failed.
04:44There's a lot here that BOP has failed.
04:46Let's just be clear.
04:46So we have a level set for everybody in this room.
04:48You're in your job because of this crisis, right?
04:52You come here today, and you say you can't testify about it,
04:54but the reason you're director now is because the last guy got fired, right?
04:58Senator, I can't tell you what I don't know.
05:00I have received no information from the FBI investigation yet,
05:03nor no information from the Inspector General.
05:06Once those entities go into one of our facilities,
05:08we are forbidden from talking to anybody in the institution.
05:11We can send in a team and look at wherever there might have been a security flaw or something,
05:15but we are not allowed to talk to anybody in our institutions about anything that happened over the Epstein...
05:21With all due respect, you still have an obligation to speak to the girls who were raped by this guy today.
05:26You may not have to speak about every particular of the guards that were arrested last night,
05:31but the fact that there is an ongoing attempt by the United States government
05:35to find out if there's still any evidence about the co-conspirators,
05:39you do have an obligation to speak to those girls who were raped today.
05:42You may not speak about the specifics of the charges against those two guards this morning
05:48who were taken into custody,
05:49but more broadly, you should be able to unpack,
05:52have we changed any processes about how cases like this are handled?
05:56It's been more than 90 days, and you said, I think your quote was,
05:59we treat every inmate the same.
06:01We believe in America that every individual has equal dignity,
06:05but not every inmate has equal value for future criminal investigations.
06:10Jeffrey Epstein was still to testify in a case.
06:13Somebody who's already been convicted, who may be on suicide watch,
06:16there are lots of good reasons to not want that guy to be able to kill himself.
06:20This is different, because it isn't just about the individual inmate who might kill themselves,
06:24it's about the fact that that bastard wasn't able to testify against his other co-conspirators.
06:29So it is wrong, as a management matter, for you to say we treat everybody the same.
06:35We should be treating people who are yet to testify against other felons, against other rapists.
06:40They have a lot more priority for your institution, don't they?
06:44Senator, pretty much all of our inmates that are in any of our jail facilities are pretrial.
06:48They're still yet to testify, to be involved, to share information on other cases.
06:53I don't know what evidence you're asking of me.
06:55If you're saying, was there any evidence in his room, in his possession at the time,
06:58that was all confiscated by the FBI.
07:00In his brain, and in the cameras, and in the tapes,
07:02that the American public well understands appear to not be urgent enough for the Department of Justice.
07:07No, it's very urgent for the Department of Justice,
07:10and it's all been confiscated by the FBI, and it's all part of their investigation.
07:14That's why none of that is shared with the director of the Bureau of Prisons,
07:16or anyone in the Bureau, until the investigations are completed.
07:20Once those are completed, I'd be very happy to come up here and talk with any one of you that want to hear
07:24everything about we glean from those investigations.
07:27But until I have that information, there's nothing I can tell you.
07:30If I don't have the information, I cannot share anything with you.
07:33Then how widespread is the problem of sleeping on the job?
07:36There are lots of people in the public who think this seems a very convenient excuse.
07:41And so, tell us, is it a systemic problem?
07:43Do we have a lot of people who sleep on the job when they're supposed to be guarding federal inmates?
07:47We have a few, sir, and we have been monitoring the cameras that are existing in every one of our institutions
07:53to determine how well and how effectively our inmates are, I mean our staff members,
07:56are doing their rounds and counts in the institutions.
07:59We have found a couple of other instances,
08:01and we have immediately referred those to the Inspector General's office.
08:04And I'm encouraging that if people just chose not to do their job,
08:08we're hoping the U.S. Attorney's office will pick up those cases and prosecute them for us,
08:12because we don't want those people in the Bureau of Prisons.
08:15They are dangerous to everybody, the inmates and the staff.
08:18And so we are zealously going about trying to determine which of our employees are good employees
08:24and who do their job, and that is the vast majority of the prison staff.
08:27But we do have some, I know, out there who obviously choose not to follow policy,
08:33choose not to do their job, and we want them gone.
08:36I do not want them in our institutions, and I am exploring those very, very carefully
08:40to identify them and get them out of our system.
08:42Now, if it's a training problem and they didn't know what they were supposed to do,
08:45that's our problem.
08:46That's management's problem.
08:48We have to do a better job training our staff.
08:50But if someone is well-trained, well-experienced, and chooses not to do their job,
08:54we want them gone.
08:55I assure you of that.
08:57I'm at time, so I'll just give you a preview of something I'm going to ask you for the record
09:01after the event.
09:01You made a really important statement about drone drops of different kinds of contraband
09:06into your institutions.
09:07That's obviously a new and hard problem.
09:09That's a problem against which we have to play defense,
09:12but there's also new opportunities for offense.
09:14And so what your long-term strategy is inside the institution about cameras
09:17is something that I think a lot of us would like to hear more,
09:20and I'll send you a letter with some questions.
09:21Okay, very good.
09:21Because Epstein's hallway should have still been monitored by cameras,
09:25even if his guards were asleep,
09:27and we don't have information about whether or not there were adequate cameras there.
09:30And so I think a lot of us would like to understand where technology dollars are going.
09:34Absolutely.
09:34Thank you, Dr. Square.
09:34Thank you, Senator.
09:35Senator Blumenthal is next, but just to follow up on this,
09:38will there be an IG report regarding what happened?
09:41There should be.
09:42Usually after the inspector general's office investigates,
09:44they do come out with a report.
09:45If people are pending criminal charges,
09:47we're not going to interfere in their cases.
09:48But if there's an IG report, I promise you we'll get fully briefed by the committee here.
09:53How can I put this?
10:00Christmas ornaments, drywall, and Jerry Epstein.
10:06Name three things that don't hang themselves.
10:09That's what the American people think.
10:12That's what the American people think.
10:15And they deserve some answers.
10:17And I know that you're not in charge of these investigations.
10:23Yes, sir.
10:23But you talk to the people who are.
10:26And I need you to take a very respectful message today.
10:36Tell the American people what happened.
10:38And don't rush it so that they don't do a thorough investigation.
10:44But you and I both know they can make this a top priority
10:48and get it done more quickly than they normally would.
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