The death of the wealthy pedophile sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, right, on Aug. 10 in a New York prison has been expected in investigative circles.
His death became almost foreordained by recent revelations publicly linking him ever more closely to powerful foreign intelligence assets, financial moguls and mob figures — and not simply to underage girls and the celebrities who socialized in his circle.
Although there are many people and institutions that bear some responsibility for Epstein's death and the trafficking cover-up that existed for years, prime responsibility for the death falls squarely on U.S. Attorney General William Barr, a master of covering up deadly and otherwise sinister crimes of massive historical importance, as we reported this May in Trump Found His Roy Cohn In Deep State Fixer Bill Barr.
The column documented Barr's work first as a CIA operative working with CIA Director George H.W. Bush in 1976 and then as a cover-up maestro in the Reagan-Bush Justice Department.
There, Barr became Bush's U.S. Attorney General after he helped thwart massive investigations of government-enabled narcotics and arms smuggling and hundreds of billions of dollars in financial frauds that helped fill Republican Party coffers around the nation, as we reported. We noted also that the crimes Barr was helping to hide implicated members of both major U.S. political parties, who were thus deterred from investigating aggressively via congressional hearings.
Then in late 1992, Bush and Barr orchestrated pardons of six high-level Iran-Contra U.S. government officials, thereby ensuring that Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh's investigation would fail.
Barr, left, is implicated in Epstein's death even if Barr's role was merely of the "let it happen" method whereby Barr's subordinates in the U.S. Bureau of Prisons created the conditions enabling either Epstein's suicide or murder in the high-security, federally run Manhattan Correctional Center (MCC) in lower Manhattan.
That prison has been entrusted with housing some of the nation's leading criminals in recent decades, including New York Mafia leader John Gotti. Based on a tip from former Gotti moneyman Lewis Kasman, the Murdoch-owned New York Post reported this weekend that Barr made a "hush-hush" visit to the prison two weeks ago about the time Epstein first suffered a supposed suicide attempt, a report unconfirmed elsewhere.
The paragraphs above summarize this editor's opinions after reviewing closely the news reports and commentaries this weekend about Epstein's death.
Previously, I reported in depth on the careers of Epstein, Barr, Donald Trump and others involved with them. The details are intriguing. Barr's late father Donald Barr, for example, had worked at the CIA-forerunner Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II.
He later served as headmaster of the Dalton School, which hired Epstein as a teacher in 1974 even though Epstein had no college degree. The elder Barr, who combined advanced literary and engineering skills, also authored a novel, Space Relations, about elites who used sex slaves and space travel.
The opinions here are derived also from daily conversations and emails from fellow investigative reporters who for years have researched Epstein as well as other mob- and intelligence-affiliated sex traffickers who specialize in providing underage sex victims to important government, business and media leaders, in part for the purpose of political blackmail.
One of those investigative reporters is former Navy intelligence officer Wayne Madsen, who predicted Epstein's death in two columns published last month in The Wayne Madsen Report, "WMR," a daily subscription investigative report. Its first post-Epstein death analysis was Epstein-Barr: “Justice” in a quasi-dictatorship known as the United States.
His reports on July 25 and 26 came after Epstein was found with bruises on his neck in his MCC cell. Authorities ascribed the bruises either to an attempt at hanging or strangulation. Madsen's reports noted the odd presence in Epstein's company of a muscular former New York City policeman, Nicholas Tartaglione, who reportedly said that he helped rescue Epstein after a suicide attempt.
Tartaglione, shown on his Facebook photo, is a former policeman in Otisville, NY, among other Hudson Valley locales. He is facing trial on charges of murdering four Columbian drug-runners in an alleged murder-for-hire killing. Madsen noted the suspicious circumstance of the former policeman possessing a cellphone in a supposedly secure prison, thereby enabling communications with the outside world. Also, Epstein purportedly complained that his injuries came from an assault.

In early 2018, this editor collaborated with Madsen on a multipart series Welcome To Waterbury: The City That Holds Secrets That Could Bring Trump Down.
We reported in depth on allegations that Epstein and Trump had raped a 13-year-old "Katie" and a 12-year-old "Maria" belonging to Epstein's friend Leslie Wexner, founder of the L Brands retail empire.
"Katie" dropped her 2016 lawsuit making rape allegations after receiving death threats shortly before the 2016 presidential election. We reported also that "Maria" had been kidnapped from her home in Waterbury, Connecticut with apparent mob involvement, and that several news organizations suppressed their reporting on the case at the time of the 2016 presidential elections.
The result is that the complainants understandably remain fearful that no one with clout would protect them if they continued to tell their stories.
New York federal judge Ronnie Abrams had shown a keen interest in the case before it was dropped shortly after the election. But Justice Department prosecutors have so far shown no public sign of bringing forward witnesses like former Trump counsel Michael Cohen, who presumably could shed light on such situations.
Cohen, right, has admitted involvement in threatening and bribing women and news organizations during that period regarding their aborted investigations into Trump sex scandals.
Cohen's admitted bribery and intimidation of news organizations focused heavily on tabloids, which are most likely to dig deeply into sex scandals involving celebrities.
Madsen also is close to that world. The National Enquirer, controlled until recently by Trump ally David Pecker, has repeatedly cited Madsen as a knowledgeable expert on political sex scandals, particularly on those targeting Trump's 2016 Republican primary opponents.
Not just victimized girls but Cohen himself, who is now serving a three-year sentence in the federal correctional center in Otisville, New York, surely must have observed with dread the federal malfeasance leading to Epstein's death, particularly after Trump's veiled threats against "rats" and leakers.
Citing specific clues, Madsen predicted Epstein's death last month in his WMR column: Is Epstein the target for a mob hit, as follows:
What is apparent with Epstein’s so-called “attempted suicide” in the Park Row jail is that some very powerful interests do not want to see Epstein come to trial in New York.
These individuals, who include Donald Trump, would rest much easier if Epstein died either by suicide, murder, or murder made to look like suicide. It matters very little if Epstein died while ensconced under tight restrictions at his Upper East Side mansion or in the MCC with access to him by other inmates.
Among others who have voiced astonishment that the Bureau of Prisons would allow Epstein to die in federal custody are law professor and former federal prosecutor Harry Litman (Jeffrey Epstein’s apparent suicide is unfathomable) and former New York City Police Chief Bernard B. Kerik, right.
Kerik, a Republican, supervised New York City's corrections system from 1995 to 2000 before becoming city's police chief under Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Kerik then became President Bush's first nominee (later withdrawn) to become Secretary of then-new Department of Homeland Security.
Kerik, writing Jeffrey Epstein's suicide makes no sense for the Capitol Hill tabloid The Hill, commented over the weekend in an op-ed:
Accused pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s death this morning — reportedly a suicide, according to federal officials — is an inexplicable end to a bizarre, tragic case that only got more disturbing the more we learned about it.
The fact that one of the country’s highest-profile federal prisoners could even commit suicide defies all logic and belief.
His death raises doubts about officials’ actions. The FBI says it will investigate; Attorney General William Barr says he is “appalled” by what happened; members of Congress such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) are demanding answers. Indeed we all need answers, before we lose all faith in our justice system.
Trump has responded to Epstein's death by retweeting an allegation by a right-wing propagandist that the Clintons are somehow responsible for Epstein's death. Vanity Fair reported: Trump’s Epstein Response: The Clintons Are Definitely Pedophile Murderers, "The president plumbed new depths by retweeting conspiracy theories about Epstein’s suicide, in lieu of making a public statement."
Meanwhile, the Washington Post has reported the disappearance of Epstein's former girlfriend and fellow trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, heir to newspaper magnate and purported Mossad asset Robert Maxwell. The Post article Epstein’s death leaves prosecutors with prime target: Ghislaine Maxwell by Marc Fisher said:
It was through a 2015 defamation lawsuit filed against Maxwell by one of Epstein’s alleged victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, that thousands of pages of documents containing detailed accounts of Epstein’s alleged abuses became public last week.
Johanna Sjoberg, a student at Palm Beach Atlantic University when she said Maxwell hired her as an assistant, said in a 2015 deposition that was released Friday that it was Maxwell’s job to ensure that three girls a day were made available to Epstein for his sexual pleasure.
Giuffre, who says she was recruited by Maxwell at age 17 after being a towel-girl at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club, is shown at center in a 2001 photo with Maxwell at right and Prince Andrew, Duke of York, at left. In 2015, she filed a defamation lawsuit against Maxwell for denying misconduct.
The presiding federal trial judge ordered release of thousands of pages of litigation documents on Aug. 9, possibly triggering Epstein's death. Those released documents are available at the Blackstone Vault: Epstein files.
With so many new developments each day, our Justice Integrity Project coverage includes multiple subsites that we update daily. They focus on overlapping dimensions of the scandals as follows: #MeToo News (including sex trafficking and major sexual harassment scandals); Media News (including allegations of cover-up and propaganda); Deep State; and Trump Watch.
The latter includes major developments last week as U.S. House of Representatives leaders move towards court challenges of the president as part of an impeachment process. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) told reporters that an impeachment inquiry is formally underway, with the first step demands via courts for documents and witnesses withheld by Trump.