A new CBS News report claims that top officials from President Donald Trump’s administration are in possession of complete surveillance footage from the night Jeffrey Epstein died—footage that does not include the much-discussed one-minute gap found in the publicly released video.
Earlier this month, the Department of Justice and the FBI released approximately 11 hours of surveillance footage from Epstein’s cell block at New York City’s Metropolitan Correctional Center, reportedly to address ongoing public skepticism about the circumstances of Epstein’s 2019 death, which was ruled a suicide.
However, the video sparked renewed speculation when viewers discovered a one-minute jump in the timestamp—from 11:58 p.m. to 12:00 a.m.—on the night of August 9, 2019. The gap raised suspicions that the footage might have been tampered with, especially since the official narrative hinges on no one entering or exiting Epstein’s cell in those critical final hours.
Now, according to a government source cited by CBS News, the FBI, DOJ, and Bureau of Prisons are all in possession of an unaltered version of the surveillance video that does not include the suspicious time skip. The source did not specify what, if anything, is visible in that missing minute.
Attorney General Pam Bondi addressed the controversy earlier this month, blaming the time jump on a technical issue. “What we learned from the Bureau of Prisons is every night they redo that video,” she said at a July 8 press briefing. “So, every night the video is reset, and every night should have the same minute missing.”
However, video forensic experts told CBS this explanation was highly unusual. According to one expert, a nightly reset of this kind is not standard in most security systems.
Further raising questions, forensic video analyst Jim Stafford—who reviewed the released footage for CBS—concluded the clip appeared to be a screen recording, not a direct export from the prison’s security system. Metadata revealed the file was created on May 23, 2025, and was likely stitched together from two separate recordings.
Despite distancing himself from Epstein, President Trump has frequently commented on the case—often shifting blame onto others, including former President Bill Clinton and former Harvard President Larry Summers. “They don’t talk about them. They talk about me,” Trump told reporters on July 25. “I have nothing to do with the guy.”
Pressed recently about Ghislaine Maxwell’s meetings with the Justice Department, Trump dismissed the conversation: “People should really focus on how well the country is doing, or they should focus on the fact that Barack Hussein Obama led a coup.”
Trump has also denounced ongoing media coverage of the Epstein case as politically motivated, even as new revelations continue to surface about what may have occurred in Epstein’s final hours. A court ruling may be required to compel the government to release the full, unedited footage—if it indeed exists.
