When Attorney General Bill Barr spoke Monday before a Fraternal Order of Police group in Louisiana, he said the Manhattan facility where accused underage sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein died was being investigated for “serious irregularities.”

But what he said just before that is vastly more interesting (emphasis mine):

“I was appalled, and indeed the whole [DOJ] was, and frankly angry, to learn of the MCC’s [Metropolitan Correctional Center] failure to adequately secure this prisoner.”

But back to that in a minute…

While outlets such as The Daily Beast have begun promoting the narrative that the MCC was simply corrosively inefficient and poorly run, there were new, confusing reports Tuesday morning that shrieking could be heard coming from Epstein’s cell the morning he allegedly committed suicide.

NEW: Shrieking heard from Jeffrey Epstein’s jail cell the morning he died at Metropolitan Correctional Center https://t.co/aEwiCXdDuA

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) August 13, 2019

What makes this report confusing is 1. it’s attributed to an unnamed source who is simply “familiar” with the situation. No other context is given; and 2. it’s hard to determine if the shrieking was related to attempts to revive Epstein. The CBS report reads:

On the morning of Jeffrey Epstein’s death there was shouting and shrieking from his jail cell, a source familiar with the situation told CBS News. Corrections officers attempted to revive him while saying “breathe, Epstein, breathe.”

But the more interesting part of the CBS report relates back to Barr’s statement about MCC’s inability to secure Epstein.

In an interview with our West Palm Beach affiliate WPEC, a former Florida corrections worker said Epstein was “treated like a celebrity” during his 13-month stint in a county jail after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution. She claims his cell was regularly left unlocked and she saw him move freely through the dormitory area – sometimes completely naked – without repercussions.

Is CBS news suggesting that perhaps Epstein, while incarcerated at the MCC, was given the same freedoms he enjoyed at a lockup in Florida that allowed him to wander around freely due to an unlocked cell?

It’s a bold suggestion and one that makes a report from an unnamed source that someone was shrieking in the cell of man engaged in the act of suicide infinitely more compelling.

It’s wise, at this point, to make no assumptions about those pending autopsy results.