Bill de Blasio Questions Epstein’s Death: ‘Way Too Convenient’

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday voiced skepticism about Jeffrey Epstein’s apparent suicide in his Manhattan prison cell, telling the Fox Business Channel that his death is “way too convenient.”

A partial transcript is as follows: 

HOST DAVID ASMAN: Jeffrey Epstein’s death was extraordinarily strange. There are a lot of parts to this that most Americans want answers to. I know it was in a federal jail, it wasn’t controlled by the city itself, but the city is involved in a lot of these federal jails. What is your opinion on what happened, how it’s being investigated, etcetera?

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO: This is way too convenient. This makes no sense. He’s one of the prominent prisoners in America, at that point. He had either attempted suicide previously or been assaulted. Either way, it is the same reality. He needed to be watched 24 hours a day. It’s one of the premier federal facilities in the country. It belongs to the Justice Department. Come on. How on earth do they miss this.

HOST KRISTINA PARTSINEVELOS: What are you implying, then?

DE BLASIO: I have been saying this all week. I’m not a conspiracy theorist by nature.

PARTSINEVELOS: But you just said it’s too inconvenient. What does that mean?

DE BLASIO: It means sometimes there are a series of events you cannot give a normal explanation for and there needs to be a full investigation.

ASMAN: [Attornery General William Barr] has said there is going to be a full investigation. He looks pretty ticked off about it. Do you believe he will get to the botton of it? What more needs to be done.

DE BLASIO: I want believe, but I believe all Americans would be more comfortable if their would be an independent element to that investigation… I’m going to say it a little more simply from my point of view. The one thing I do not think is possible here is pure tradition human error, some guard fell asleep or someone didn’t cover their shift. That’s the one thing I would rule out given the prominence of the case and the nature of the situation, which means something else happened. I don’t know what that something else is. But it needs to be investigated.