Epstein May Have Left a Suicide Note—and DOJ Didn’t Mention It

Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 death—ruled a suicide by a New York City coroner—has been pored over by conspiracy theorists. The financier was arrested for running a child sex-trafficking ring, and was friendly with many politicians and celebrities. His trial could have led to the arrest of an entire network of elites. And he was supposed to be in a high-security cell with guards nearby to prevent him from harming himself. How could this even happen?

Answers since then have been hard to come by, but on Thursday, another sliver of information was revealed: Epstein may have written a suicide note the previous month. The New York Times interviewed a cellmate of Epstein, Nicholas Tartaglione, who claimed he found a note after an incident in which Epstein was found unresponsive a few weeks before his actual death.

The note said it was “time to say goodbye,” Tartaglione said, and contained a line similar to, “What do you want me to do, bust out crying?” Tartaglione said it was written on a legal pad and found in the pages of a graphic novel.

Epstein survived this first incident, and in fact told jailers afterward he was not suicidal and the marks on his neck came from Tartaglione. Then he walked that accusation back, telling Bureau of Prisons investigators on July 31 he did “not have any issues” with his cellmate.

Epstein’s purported suicide note has not been reviewed by the public. The Times found that it was sealed by a federal judge during Tartaglione’s own criminal case. (Tartaglione has been charged with a life sentence for a quadruple homicide, and is appealing his conviction.)

On Thursday, the paper asked the judge to unseal the note. “Investigators scrutinizing Mr. Epstein’s high-profile death lacked what could have been a key piece of evidence,” the Times concluded.

A Department of Justice spokeswoman told the paper that the agency had not seen the note. It was also not mentioned in the DOJ’s investigations into Epstein’s death.

Information surrounding Epstein’s death continues to fuel a conspiratorial fire. Back in 2019, a 4chan user posted about his death before any media outlets had gotten word of it. In Donald Trump’s second term, the administration released an 11-hour surveillance video, which they claimed proved no one entered Epstein’s cell on the night he died. Reporters quickly found discrepancies in the footage.

The way the White House is operating, it seems that the United States doesn’t want allies.

Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Thursday that he’s open to the idea of pulling troops from other allies Italy and Spain due to the European continent’s lacking support for his invasion of Iran and the subsequent blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump already threatened Wednesday night to withdraw from Germany, and verbally attacked German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

“You talked about possibly pulling some troops out of Germany. Would you be considering the same thing for Spain and Italy?” asked a reporter.

“Yeah, probably,” Trump said. “I probably will. I mean, look, why shouldn’t I?

“Italy has not been of any help to us, and Spain has been horrible,” he continued. “Absolutely horrible. As has NATO.

“It’s not even the fact that they’re better, it’s one thing if they said it nicely, or if they said, ‘OK, we’ll help but the help’s a little slow,’ but the level. And we helped them with Ukraine. You know they made a mess out of Ukraine, a total mess. Ukraine is nothing to do—we’re an ocean apart, it has to do with them,” Trump said, calling it “insane” that former President Joe Biden provided aid to the war-torn, Russian-invaded country.

“But uh, when we needed them they were not there. We have to remember that,” Trump continued. “And so if we ever have a big one, because we didn’t need any help with Iran. We had Iran right from the first day, it was over. It was over.”

That’s not true. The war with Iran is currently in its eighth week with no end in sight. The ramifications of the war, including the total blockade to Iran’s oil trade, have thrust the world into a global energy crisis that has raised the cost of living practically everywhere.

Furthermore, Trump has repeatedly asked for assistance from America’s European allies to help reopen the strait. Just yesterday, the Trump administration floated the possibility of building an international coalition in order to restore freedom of navigation along the critical waterway.

Within the same answer, Trump then claimed that he only asked for foreign participation in the effort to “see if they’d do it.”

“In all cases, they said, ‘We don’t want to get involved,’” he said.

Trump’s Wednesday announcement that he was considering pulling U.S. troops out of Germany stunned the Pentagon as much as it did U.S. allies.

The Defense Department “was not expecting it and has not been planning any kind of drawdown,” a congressional aide familiar with the situation told Politico. “But we have to take him seriously because he was serious about it during his first administration.”

In July 2020, Trump proposed pulling 12,000 troops out of Germany in order to punish Berlin for its low defense spending. That order was never implemented.

Republicans in Congress voted to fund the Department of Homeland Security Thursday, effectively ending the 76-day shutdown of the department.

The bill, passed by a voice vote in the House, is a win for Democrats, as it still includes no money for ICE or Border Patrol, and is now headed to President Trump’s desk to be signed into law. House Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly decided to finally support the bill after a private meeting with his fellow Republican leaders earlier in the day, where they agreed that the situation couldn’t continue.

The GOP will still try to fund ICE through the reconciliation process, which takes much longer but only requires a simple majority in both chambers of Congress. Previously, House Republicans had criticized their counterparts in the Senate for passing the measure with a voice vote, which doesn’t record individual members’ votes, only to adopt the same method on Thursday.

Conservatives were not happy with the decision, but didn’t see any good options. Representative Chip Roy said, “I think it’s asinine that we’re funding the government this way,” but Representative Clay Higgins said, “The speaker, I think, handled, under the circumstances, very well.”

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin complained last week that the department was almost out of money and soon wouldn’t be able to pay its employees. Now, assuming Trump doesn’t veto the bill, employees will still be paid. But the question of ICE’s future is still unanswered, as Democrats want the agency reformed at a minimum, with some calling for its abolition, and Republicans seem to be fine with the violence it visits on American cities. For now, at least, ICE won’t get any more money.

Now that he’s no longer eligible for the office, Donald Trump—a 79-year-old who routinely falls asleep in critical meetings—believes it’s pertinent for all future presidential candidates to undergo a cognitive examination.

“Anybody running for President or Vice President should be forced to take a Cognitive Examination prior to entering the Race!” Trump posted on Truth Social Thursday afternoon. “By doing so, we wouldn’t be surprised at people like Barack ‘Hussein’ Obama, or Sleepy Joe Biden, getting ‘ELECTED.’ Our Country would be a much better place!”

Trump had demanded former Vice President Kamala Harris take a cognitive test while on the campaign trail in October 2024, and he has previously suggested Biden should have taken such a test before being allowed to take office.

“I took the Exam three times during my (‘THREE!’) Terms as President, and ACED IT ALL THREE TIMES—An Achievement that, even on a single Exam, according to the Doctors, has rarely been done before!” he added.

But Trump’s health isn’t actually that impressive—particularly as it relates to keeping his eyes open. Just last week, the president was caught falling asleep during another White House event, slumping over in his chair and fluttering his eyes for nearly a minute as his aides announced a new pharmaceutical deal.

Trump has an oddball history with reportedly “acing” cognitive exams. Since 2024, the self-styled “stable genius” has taken several such tests, but his recollections of their contents has called into question whether he actually took them at all.

While bragging about his results to the press, Trump would invariably tweak the questions he allegedly nailed, at times boasting that he had correctly recited five words and performed basic multiplication while at other times insisting that he had passed thanks to correctly identifying a whale. That is, in spite of the fact that the test’s authors reported that none of the three versions in circulation actually had a whale on them. Other test creators have said their exams are to check for dementia, not cognitive speed.

Since then, the MAGA leader’s health has become a much graver topic. Over the first year and change of his second term, Trump’s speeches have become more disjointed and incoherent, and his behavior has grown increasingly erratic. The 79-year-old has spent hours at Walter Reed Medical Center, fallen asleep during more than a dozen critical meetings, appeared lost and disoriented around foreign heads of state, frequently slurred his speech, and appeared with discolored and bruised skin on several occasions.

Just this month, Trump attacked several of his longest allies, pledged to annihilate Iranian civilization via a social media post, and started beef with Pope Leo XIV, claiming that the Catholic pontiff was “weak on crime.”

He also forgot when Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, and that one of his most fervent GOP critics—North Carolina Republican Thom Tillis—is still in the Senate.

His escalatory behavior, particularly as it relates to the Iran war, spurred new calls for the president to have his brain tested yet again, though White House physicians missed the April 25 deadline demanded by Representative Jaimie Raskin.

Elon Musk is not availing himself well in court.

The tech mogul and fascism enthusiast is suing Sam Altman and OpenAI, the organization he co-founded, for moving the nonprofit organization to a for-profit company. Musk took the stand three days this week in Oakland, and his testimony is not helping his cause.

Throughout his time on the stand, Musk didn’t answer yes or no to yes-or-no questions, claimed to forget his earlier testimony, and lost his temper at Altman’s counsel, William Savitt, accusing him of trying to trick him. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, after the jury had left Wednesday, said that “[Musk] was at times difficult.”

On Thursday, things got so bad that the judge had to remind Musk that he isn’t a lawyer after he accused Savitt of asking “leading” questions.

“He can lead,” Rogers said, referring to the opposing counsel. “That’s not how it works. Let’s remind everyone in the courtroom that you’re not a lawyer.”

A day earlier, Musk appeared to undermine his entire case. During direct testimony, Musk’s lawyers tried to paint a positive picture of the executive. He said that “I don’t lose my temper,” and “I don’t yell at people,” adding that he may have once called someone a “jackass,” but only to say, “Don’t be a jackass.”

But Savitt easily demonstrated that this wasn’t true, as Musk openly lost his temper in the courtroom. He nitpicked simple questions and contradicted an earlier deposition. The opposing counsel was trying to make the case that Musk wasn’t suing over his desire to keep OpenAI nonprofit but because he wanted to control the company—and Musk made their case for them.

Defense presented an email Musk wrote in 2016 to a colleague at Neuralink, one of his companies, where he said, “Deepmind is moving very fast. I am concerned that OpenAI is not on a path to catch up. Setting it up as non-profit might, in hindsight, have been the wrong move. Sense of urgency is not as high.”

When asked about this on the witness stand, Musk said he was merely speculating. Savitt asked him, “Those are your words, yes or no?” Musk replied that “this is a hypothetical.”

“So you thought it might have been a wrong move? That’s what you said?” Savitt followed up. Musk finally admitted yes.

Savitt later caught Musk testifying that he didn’t read a 2017 document about OpenAI shifting to a for-profit company.

“I didn’t read the fine print. We’re going into the fine print of this document,” Musk claimed, saying he had only read the first section or paragraph.

“It’s a four-page document,” Savitt replied.

Savitt then referred to Musk’s deposition, where he said he didn’t even read one paragraph. “I don’t think I read this term sheet,” Musk had admitted. “I’m not sure I actually read this term sheet.… I did not closely look at this term sheet.”

This got Musk to raise his voice and contradict his earlier claim that he never lost his temper, shouting in the courtroom, “I said I didn’t look closely! I read the headline!”

All of this is more proof of Musk’s own ego being the real reason for his biggest problems, and shows how his time in the federal government also went badly. The case is not looking good for the world’s richest man.