Jeffrey Epstein’s possible suicide note is “very hard to believe,” one former federal prosecutor says, given the Justice Department’s spotty track record of trustworthiness.
Glenn Kirschner, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia office, told The Daily Beast Podcast that he still has questions about the purported 2019 note from the sex offender that Epstein’s former cellmate claims he found in a book.
Judge Kenneth Karas, of the Federal District Court in White Plains, New York, unsealed the letter following a New York Times petition last week. The DOJ said in a statement at the time that the letter hadn’t been authenticated, and that the department hadn’t seen it before, while the Times has noted similarities between the note and the language in some of Epstein’s emails.
Still, Kirschner had doubts.
“It’s really hard for me to accept anything that Todd Blanche and this Department of Justice says, because we have seen them lie. We’ve seen them contradict themselves,” Kirschner told host Joanna Coles about the acting attorney general and Donald Trump’s former personal attorney.
Blanche “directly contradicted himself in the Southern Poverty Law Center case, which just is mind-blowing to me because you’re not supposed to talk about a defendant in a case that you have indicted,” he said, referring to how the DOJ had to walk back a claim Blanche made about that nonprofit, which has been indicted on fraud and money laundering charges.
“He lied about the Southern Poverty Law Center and then changed his tune on Fox News and admitted that he wasn’t accurate the first time,” Kirschner said. “So I just don’t trust it. I mean, they can put all of the… Epstein information in the public square that they want and I’m not really going to credit it unless and until we see all of the Epstein files delivered to a special master, which is an arm of the court—somebody the judge appoints to get to the bottom of governmental shenanigans—and the special master thoughtfully assesses everything in the Epstein files and then recommends to the judge what should be disclosed under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.”
Until then, Kirschner said, “I don’t believe anything that Todd Blanche tries to peddle to the American people.”
Kirschner also cited his credentials and experience.
“As an old homicide guy who has seen more autopsies than I care to remember and… was steeped in all things, you know, forensic pathology—medical examiners, rulings on cause and manner of death—I find it very hard to believe Epstein killed himself,” he said.
He added later: “I just don’t trust anything coming out of this administration in this Department of Justice. So, it was interesting to see that alleged suicide note, but I am still not persuaded by it.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the DOJ for comment.
The New York City Medical Examiner ruled Epstein’s August 2019 death a suicide, but alternative theories were fueled in part by security lapses in the now-shuttered Manhattan jail where he was being held, as well as differing conclusions about an orange shape moving toward his cell hours before he was found dead.
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