During a Senate hearing on the circumstances surrounding Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 death in federal custody, Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana sparked major attention with a blunt remark comparing Epstein’s death to things that “don’t hang themselves.” The hearing, held on November 19, examined why Epstein—who officials reported died by suicide—was left unsupervised for nearly eight hours in a Manhattan jail. U.S. prosecutors continue to investigate oversight failures and procedural lapses at the facility as questions about Epstein’s treatment persist.
00:00Christmas ornaments, drywall, and Jerry Epstein.
00:06Name three things that don't hang themselves.
00:09That's what the American people think.
00:12That's what the American people think.
00:15And they deserve some answers.
00:18And I know that you're not in charge of these investigations.
00:22Yes, sir.
00:23But you talk to the people who are.
00:27And I need you to take a very respectful message today.
00:36Tell the American people what happened.
00:40And don't rush it so that they don't do a thorough investigation.
00:44But you and I both know they can make this a top priority and get it done more quickly
00:50than they normally would.
00:52As I indicated in my opening statement, I wanted to talk about the death of Mr. Epstein.
00:56Do you concur with the opinion that it was a suicide?
01:03That was the finding of the coroner, sir.
01:05Okay.
01:06Do you have any evidence to suggest otherwise?
01:07I do not.
01:08How could this have happened?
01:11Unfortunately, sir, the death and the whole situation is still under the investigation
01:16of the FBI and the Inspector General's Office.
01:18And I'm really not at liberty to discuss specifics of this case.
01:22I can discuss issues around institutional operations, but I can't specifically talk about
01:28that particular issue.
01:29Okay.
01:31With a case this high profile, there's got to be either a major malfunction of the system
01:37or a criminal enterprise at foot to allow this to happen.
01:40So are you looking at both?
01:43Is the FBI looking at both?
01:45If the FBI is involved, then they are looking at criminal enterprise, yes.
01:48Do we have people in custody today of this high profile nature?
01:54Have we done anything to adjust since Mr. Epstein's death?
01:57Sir, we take every inmate's life very seriously in the Bureau of Prisons.
02:02A high profile inmate is no more important or significant in terms of our operations than just the average inmate that comes our way.
02:08What do I mean high profile somebody who's on a suicide watch?
02:11I would like to explain our suicide watch system, if I may.
02:14I can't talk specifically about Epstein, but we have different tiers of response if we identify an inmate who appears to have suicidal thinking.
02:22And I came into the Bureau as a psychologist.
02:24I've worked with lots of suicidal inmates.
02:25I 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.
02:31But once an inmate is identified as potentially suicidal, we have a suicide watch operation that we can place them in.
02:37It's a very stark, very difficult setting where everything is stripped from the room except a mattress.
02:42They get a coarse gown like to wear that cannot be twisted in any way that they could hang themselves from it.
02:48They have one mattress and one blanket, and they are watched constantly.
02:52There's nothing else in that room.
02:53Is Mr. Epstein on suicide watch?
02:54Yes, he watched.
02:55However, the average time on suicide watch is only about 24 hours because it is such a stark and actually depressing situation.
03:02We then can move them to another tier of observation, which is called psychological observation.
03:07Did that happen in this case?
03:08I can't speak specifically, but I am sharing this with you so that you understand our procedure, sir.
03:13They then can move to another tier, which is psychological observation, where they get their clothes back.
03:19They're in a more normalized setting.
03:21They are watched and scrutinized every moment of the day.
03:24But that is a much more normal environment.
03:26They have roommates?
03:27I'm sorry, sir?
03:28Do they have roommates?
03:29No, they do not when they're on psychological observation because they're being watched continuously.
03:34Did Mr. Epstein have a roommate when he allegedly committed suicide?
03:37No, he did not.
03:38Okay.
03:39Go ahead.
03:40They move into psychological observation.
03:44Psychologists see them routinely, interview them repeatedly, and once it's determined that the threat of suicide seems to have passed,
03:52then that inmate can be returned back to open population.
03:56Well, 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.
04:06They'll never see justice.
04:09Dr. 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?
04:19I can only speak since 1976 when I joined the Bureau.
04:23I don't know prior to that, but I would say it's probably gotten the most public attention.
04:27There are lots of taxpayers and citizens who've never thought about the BOP, and you have lots of good patriotic, hard-working folks there.
04:33I get that.
04:34But in terms of a crisis of public trust in general, but also in terms of your workforce, this death happened in the middle of August, early August.
04:42It's Thanksgiving, and you're here to testify today, and you say you're not allowed to speak about this incident.
04:47I think that's crazy.
04:48Can you distinguish among types of investigations at least for us?
04:52Because I'm aware of at least three Epstein investigations.
04:55You've got a whole bunch of women who were raped by this guy.
04:58This is a sex trafficking ring in the United States.
05:01This guy had evidence.
05:02He's got co-conspirators, and there are victims out there who want to know where the evidence has gone.
05:08Can you tell us a little bit more about the different investigations?
05:11I understand there's at least one that you're directed by Maine Justice not to speak about, but there are at least three investigations.
05:17Can you unpack them, please?
05:18There are two investigations that are ongoing.
05:21One is the FBI's investigation, and the other is the Inspector General's investigation.
05:25Both inside BOP, but there's a third one outside, which is why Epstein was in your institution to begin with.
05:30Yeah, and that, sir, is completely out of my...
05:32I get that.
05:33There's a lot here where DOJ has failed.
05:35There's a lot here that BOP has failed.
05:37Let's just be clear so we have a level set for everybody in this room.
05:40You're in your job because of this crisis, right?
05:43You come here today, and you say you can't testify about it, but the reason you're director now is because the last guy got fired, right?
05:49Senator, I can't tell you what I don't know.
05:51I have received no information from the FBI investigation yet, nor no information from the Inspector General.
05:56Once those entities go into one of our facilities, we are forbidden from talking to anybody in the institution.
06:02We can send in a team and look at wherever there might have been a security flaw or something, but we are not allowed to talk to anybody in our institutions about anything that happened over the Epstein...
06:12With all due respect, you still have an obligation to speak to the girls who were raped by this guy today.
06:17You may not have to speak about every particular of the guards that were arrested last night, but the fact that there is an ongoing attempt by the United States government to find out if there's still any evidence about the co-conspirators, you do have an obligation to speak to those girls who were raped today.
06:33You may not speak about the specifics of the charges against those two guards this morning who were taken into custody, but more broadly, you should be able to unpack, have we changed any processes about how cases like this are handled?
06:47It's been more than 90 days, and you said, I think your quote was, we treat every inmate the same.
06:52We believe in America that every individual has equal dignity, but not every inmate has equal value for future criminal investigations.
07:01Jeffrey Epstein was still to testify in a case. Somebody who's already been convicted, who may be on suicide watch, there are lots of good reasons to not want that guy to be able to kill himself.
07:11This is different because it isn't just about the individual inmate who might kill themselves.
07:15It's about the fact that that bastard wasn't able to testify against his other co-conspirators.
07:20So it is wrong as a management matter for you to say we treat everybody the same.
07:25We should be treating people who are yet to testify against other felons, against other rapists.
07:31They have a lot more priority for your institution, don't they?
07:34Senator, pretty much all of our inmates that are in any of our jail facilities are pretrial.
07:39They're still yet to testify, to be involved, to share information on other cases.
07:44I don't know what evidence you're asking of me.
07:46If you're saying was there any evidence in his room, in his possession at the time, that was all confiscated by the FBI.
07:51In his brain, and in the cameras, and in the tapes that the American public well understands appear to not be urgent enough for the Department of Justice.
07:59No, it's very urgent for the Department of Justice, and it's all been confiscated by the FBI, and it's all part of their investigation.
08:05That's why none of that is shared with the Director of the Bureau of Prisons or anyone in the Bureau until the investigations are completed.
08:11Once those are completed, I'd be very happy to come up here and talk with any one of you that want to hear everything about we glean from those investigations.
08:18But until I have that information, there's nothing I can tell you.
08:21If I don't have the information, I cannot share anything with you.
08:24Then how widespread is the problem of sleeping on the job?
08:27There are lots of people in the public who think this seems a very convenient excuse.
08:32And so tell us, is it a systemic problem?
08:34Do we have a lot of people who sleep on the job when they're supposed to be guarding federal inmates?
08:38We have a few, sir, and we have been monitoring the cameras that are existing in every one of our institutions
08:44to determine how well and how effectively our staff members are doing their rounds and counts in the institutions.
08:50We have found a couple of other instances, and we have immediately referred those to the Inspector General's Office.
08:55And I'm encouraging that if people just chose not to do their job, we're hoping the U.S. Attorney's Office will pick up those cases and prosecute them for us.
09:04Because we don't want those people in the Bureau of Prisons.
09:06They are dangerous to everybody, the inmates and the staff.
09:09And so we are zealously going about trying to determine which of our employees are good employees and who do their job.
09:16And that is the vast majority of the prison staff.
09:19But we do have some I know out there who obviously choose not to follow policy, choose not to do their job.
09:26And we want them gone.
09:27I do not want them in our institutions.
09:29And I am exploring those very, very carefully to identify them and get them out of our system.
09:33Now, if it's a training problem and they didn't know what they were supposed to do, that's our problem.
09:38That's management's problem.
09:39We have to do a better job training our staff.
09:41But if someone is well trained, well experienced, and chooses not to do their job, we want them gone.
09:47I assure you of that.
09:48I'm at time, so I'll just give you a preview of something I'm going to ask you for the record after the event.
09:53You made a really important statement about drone drops of different kinds of contraband into your institutions.
09:58That's obviously a new and hard problem.
10:00That's a problem against which we have to play defense, but there's also new opportunities for offense.
10:05And so what's your long-term strategy is inside the institution about cameras is something that I think a lot of us would like to hear more.
10:11And I'll send you a letter with some questions.
10:12Okay, very good. Thank you.
10:13Because Epstein's hallway should have still been monitored by cameras even if his guards were asleep.
10:18And we don't have information about whether or not there were adequate cameras there.
10:21And so I think a lot of us would like to understand where technology dollars are going.
10:25Absolutely. Thank you, Dr. Sler.
10:26Thank you, Senator.
10:27Senator Blumenthal is next, but just follow up on this.
10:29Will there be an IG report regarding what happened?
10:32There should be. Usually after the Inspector General's Office investigates, they do come out with a report.
10:36If people are pending criminal charges, we're not going to interfere in their cases.
10:40But if there's an IG report, I promise you we'll get fully briefed by the committee here.
10:49How can I put this?
10:51Christmas ornaments, drywall, and Jerry Epstein.
10:55Name three things that don't hang themselves.
11:00That's what the American people think.
11:04That's what the American people think.
11:07And they deserve some answers.
11:09And I know that you're not in charge of these investigations.
11:14Yes, sir.
11:15But you talk to the people who are.
11:18And I need you to take a very respectful message today.
11:23Tell the American people what happened.
11:30And don't rush it so that they don't do a thorough investigation.
11:36But you and I both know they can make this a top priority and get it done more quickly than they normally would.
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