Jeffrey Epstein died in prison in August 2019 and conspiracy theorists assumed it was a cover-up.
In August this year, the FBI released footage of his final moments, which the Department of Justice said included a minute of footage that had been obscured but which showed nothing untoward; conspiracy theorists thought this was suspicious.
WIRED colleague Dhruv Mehrotra examined the footage and discovered that three minutes had been cut from the video, which was edited by someone called MJ Cole; he also discovered that the video had been compiled from three different sources.
This fuelled further conspiracy theories that the video had been doctored to hide something, and prompted accusations that the Obama administration had been involved in a cover-up.
Right-wing conspiracy theorists, including Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer, have seized upon the row.
By Lauren Goode, Michael Calore, Katie Drummond, Dhruv Mehrotra
