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