BLURRED LINES

FBI Goon Ignored Warning Before Making Bizarre Epstein Video Boast

An unearthed email sent to Kash Patel’s then-deputy makes his Epstein claim all the more baffling.

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Former Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino boasted that video of Jeffrey Epstein’s final hours was crystal clear—days after being told the footage was grainy, newly unearthed internal emails reveal.

Bongino, who made a career as a podcaster by fueling Epstein conspiracy theories, told Fox & Friends on May 29, 2025, that surveillance footage would prove the disgraced financier died by suicide, and viewers would soon be able to see the video for themselves.

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“There’s video clear as day,” the former Secret Service agent said. “He’s the only person in there and the only person coming out. You can see it.” He promised live on air to release both the original recording and an enhanced version.

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But newly released FBI correspondence obtained by the Daily Beast’s investigations unit, PunchUp, via an FOIA request reveals that Bongino, 51, had been warned eight days earlier about serious limitations with the recording.

On May 21, 2025, senior FBI official Christopher Raia, 50, forwarded Bongino a presentation about Epstein’s death, along with a caveat about the quality of the recording. “As I understand it the video is quite grainy and it is hard to make out anything,” Raia wrote.

He added that the FBI’s Operational Technology Division was seeing whether the footage could be improved.

By June 4, Bongino’s confidence appeared to have softened.

Appearing on Fox News’ Hannity, he changed his tune, admitting that the surveillance footage was “not the greatest video in the world.” He added, “I don’t want to set expectations on fire.”

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The FBI and DoJ eventually published the footage on July 7 last year, alongside a controversial memorandum concluding that Epstein, 66, had killed himself in his Manhattan jail cell on August 10, 2019.

The recording showed a common area outside the tier containing Epstein’s cell, not the cell itself. Officials said the footage supported their conclusion that nobody entered the relevant cell block during the night of the pedophile’s death.

But the release immediately drew scrutiny when a gap of about one minute was found in the published video, prompting further questions about how the FBI handled the evidence.

The newly released correspondence also reveals that by July 17 and 18, 2025, officials in the FBI’s New York office, D.C. headquarters, and technical divisions had exchanged urgent requests for information about the footage’s history and how it had been handled.

The frantic discussions, which continued for four days, expose the efforts made by the bureau to establish and explain the recording’s history long after it was presented as evidence supporting the suicide finding.

The technical issues were subsequently examined in detail by CBS News, which reported in February this year how the FBI’s master recording had been destroyed under evidence-disposal procedures in 2024.

Investigators had been forced to reconstruct the surveillance footage using another copy, and the screen-recording process introduced a 62-second gap. CBS reported that an FBI specialist had also used video-editing software to combine recordings and that the explanation that it had been caused by a nightly system reset had not been verified.

Congress made the missing footage public in September 2025. It showed nothing unusual during the disputed period, according to CBS.

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An FBI spokesperson told PunchUp: “Under the leadership of the Trump administration and this Department of Justice, Director Patel is overseeing the most transparent FBI in history. This FBI has produced over 60,000 pages to Congress, nearly four times the number of documents produced by predecessors Comey and Wray combined.

“In addition, this FBI also successfully undertook a monumental effort with the Department of Justice releasing 1.7 million pages related to the Epstein files – while protecting victims – even when previous leadership or administrations released nothing.”

Bongino did not respond to a request for comment.

Tom Latchem exposes the secrets, scandals, and stories that powerful people and institutions want to keep under wraps. Follow all of his reporting at PunchUp on Substack.

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