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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