OH, I DUNNO, I THINK I CAN FATHOM IT:

For anyone familiar with Bureau of Prisons standard operating procedures, Jeffrey Epstein’s apparent suicide is more than mysterious; it is unfathomable.

The 66-year-old accused sex trafficker was found dead in his prison cell at the Metropolitan Correction Center (MCC) Saturday morning, apparently after having hanged himself.

The Bureau of Prisons, the federal agency that runs the MCC, has said the FBI will investigate.

It had better.

Epstein’s death almost certainly means that astounding blunders occurred, perhaps by multiple personnel at the Bureau of Prisons (BOP).

If any prisoner in the federal system should have been a candidate for suspicion of suicide, it was the high-profile and disgraced Epstein. All administrative and structural measures should have been in place to ensure it could not happen. And yet it apparently did.

If there’s any lesson of the past several years, it’s that institutional integrity is overrated, and pretty much always yields to the needs of the powerful. It was possible to pretend otherwise for a long time, but no more. This is likely another example, though of course it’s early yet.

UPDATE: I am willing to entertain your most insane conspiracy theories about Epstein’s death.

Normally I scoff at Birthers, sneer at QAnoners, and laugh in the face of Pizzagaters. Although, between the Epstein saga and the Catholic Church’s endless scandals, the laughter about that last one has gradually turned from uproarious to more like uncomfortable throat-clearing.

Today, though? Today this mind is open for business on conspiracy theories. That’s how dubious Epstein’s death is. Gimme your best shot: Clinton-backed assassination? Trump-backed assassination? Coordinated hit by a cabal of international jetset pedos? The Saudis? Mossad?

Yeah, we’re gonna find out the X-Files was a documentary. Plus: “It’s a good thing public faith in institutions was already in the toilet or this episode really might have shaken it.”