Mar.16

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House Oversight Committee to Hear Epstein's Guard

One of the "odd" things about the death of Jeffrey Epstein on Aug. 10, 2019, is that he was on suicide watch and was supposed to be guarded 24/7. Two of his guards, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, were charged in Nov. 2019 with falsifying records, claiming they had completed their rounds of the special housing unit, where Epstein was kept, when they didn't. The indictment said they spent their shift at their desks browsing the Internet. At 6:30 a.m. on the day Epstein died, Noel and Thomas discovered his body.

The indictment was later dropped for some reason. The recent dump of more Epstein files has brought some strange tidbits to light, to wit:

• A series of small cash deposits—adding up to about $12,000—to Noel's bank account between April 2018 and July 2019. Most of the deposits occurred before Epstein was arrested. The last one came 10 days prior to his death. Noel's bank flagged those transactions to the FBI in a suspicious activity report, which was filed a few days after Noel's federal indictment, according to recently disclosed files.
  
  
• A brief flash of orange seen on prison surveillance video in an area near Epstein's cell at 10:40 p.m. the night before Epstein was discovered unresponsive with a noose made from orange cloth.
  
  
• A list of Noel's browsing history, which included internet searches for furniture, benefits websites and the "latest on Epstein in jail."

On account of all these oddities and "coincidences" (e.g., no guards present just when the video surveillance cameras "failed"), Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) wants to have a word with Noel next week, under oath. He said: "No one's accusing her of any wrongdoing, but we have a lot of questions about Epstein."

Also peculiar is that at 10:40 on Aug. 9, a corrections officer "believed to be Noel" carried linen or clothing to the tier where Epstein's cell was. This was the linen with which Epstein was found hanging. In a sworn interview, Noel has denied bringing Epstein the linen that night. All this material surely gives the members things to ask about.

This is the normal way prosecutors work. They start at the bottom and work their way up the food chain. Sometimes something a minor player has to say breaks the case wide open. In 1973, Fred Thompson, then minority counsel for the Senate Watergate Committee, casually asked witness Alexander Butterfield: "Mr. Butterfield, are you aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the president?" Butterfield didn't want to lie under oath and revealed the secret taping system Richard Nixon had installed. That off-hand question and answer led to a subpoena for the tapes and ultimately Nixon's resignation. Butterfield died last week at 99. (V)