MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews pushed back on a guest when he claimed that President Trump and Attorney General William Barr “facilitated” Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide.
Epstein, 66, an alleged child sexual predator and trafficker, died earlier this week from an apparent suicide, but there are investigations looking into how he had the opportunity to kill himself despite possibly having tried to do so weeks prior.
MSNBC legal analyst Paul Butler made the claim that Trump and Barr were complicit in Epstein’s suicide during his Tuesday night appearance on Hardball with Chris Matthews.
“You know, I think Donald Trump is trying to deflect. If Bill Clinton has exposure, then so does Donald Trump,” he began. “Bill Clinton socialized with Epstein. So did Donald Trump. Bill Clinton was on the private plane. So was Donald Trump. The fact is that Mr. Epstein took his own life. He died while he was in the custody of the Trump administration. Bill Barr directs the Bureau of Prisons, and they allowed, in some ways they facilitated Mr. Epstein’s suicide.”
Matthews interrupted, “Well, that’s not fair. What do you mean facilitated?”
“At minimum, it was negligence. What the investigation by the inspector general, the Justice Department, and the FBI will look at, is was it knowing and intentional,” Butler later added. “At worse, something much more sinister.”
The host then questioned him about what “sinister” possibilities there could be, and Butler responded that the question of whether or not foul play played a role in Epstein’s death “has to be asked.”
