The Daily Populous Wednesday July 16th, 2025 morning edition
Authored by wired.com and submitted by wiredmagazine

Newly uncovered metadata reveals that nearly three minutes of footage were cut from what the US Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation described as “full raw” surveillance video from the only functioning camera near Jeffrey Epstein’s prison cell the night before he was found dead. The video was released last week as part of the Trump administration’s commitment to fully investigate Epstein’s 2019 death but instead has raised new questions about how the footage was edited and assembled.

WIRED previously reported that the video had been stitched together in Adobe Premiere Pro from two video files, contradicting the Justice Department’s claim that it was “raw” footage. Now, further analysis shows that one of the source clips was approximately 2 minutes and 53 seconds longer than the segment included in the final video, indicating that footage appears to have been trimmed before release. It’s unclear what, if anything, the minutes cut from the first clip showed.

The nearly three-minute discrepancy may be related to the widely reported one-minute gap—between 11:58:58 pm and 12:00:00 am—that attorney general Pam Bondi has attributed to a nightly system reset. The metadata confirms that the first video file, which showed footage from August 9, 2019, continued for several minutes beyond what appears in the final version of the video and was trimmed to the 11:58:58 pm mark, right before the jump to midnight. The cut to the first clip doesn’t necessarily mean that there is additional time unaccounted for—the second clip picks up at midnight, which suggests the two would overlap—nor does it prove that the missing minute was cut from the video.

The footage was released at a moment of political tension. Trump allies had spent months speculating about the disclosure of explosive new evidence about Epstein’s death. But last week, the DOJ and FBI issued a memo stating that no “incriminating ‘client list’” exists and reaffirmed the government’s long-standing conclusion that Epstein—whom the US government accused of committing conspiracy to sex traffic minors and sex trafficking minors—died by suicide. That announcement triggered immediate backlash from pro-Trump influencers and media figures, who essentially accused the administration of a cover-up.

In response to detailed questions about how the video was assembled, WIRED sent a request for comment to the Department of Justice at 7:40 am on Tuesday morning. Just two minutes later, Natalie Baldassarre, a public affairs officer for the DOJ, replied tersely: “Refer you to the FBI.” The FBI declined WIRED’s request for comment.

On Friday, WIRED published an analysis of metadata embedded in the video, confirmed by independent video forensics experts, which indicates that the file was assembled from at least two source clips, saved multiple times, exported, and then uploaded to the DOJ’s website, where it was presented as “raw” footage.

WIRED’s initial analysis found that those saves took place over a 23-minute span; however, further analysis of additional metadata shows the file was actually edited and saved several times over a period of more than three and a half hours on May 23, 2025. Specifically, the file was created at 4:48 pm and last modified at 8:16 pm ET that day. The metadata also references “MJCOLE~1,” which is likely a shortened version of a longer username. While it likely begins with “MJCOLE,” the full name cannot be determined from the metadata alone.

Colonel-Mooseknuckle on July 15th, 2025 at 19:56 UTC »

Hmmm...sounds familiar.

> When the existence of the Watergate tapes became public during the investigations into the 1970’s scandal, one of the most memorable moments was the discovery of the infamous 18.5-minute gap and what some saw as President Richard Nixon’s secretary’s bizarre explanation for what caused it.

TintedApostle on July 15th, 2025 at 19:45 UTC »

“The suppressing of evidence ought always to be taken for the strongest evidence.”

Andrew Hamilton, The Trial of John Peter Zenger 1735

Voaracious on July 15th, 2025 at 19:44 UTC »

Protecting their shitty assets is more important than the will of the people. Got it. Got it loud and clear.

Fuck this nation.