Color Kash Patel between a rock and a hard place. It’s in his best survival instincts to stonewall the Epstein files and that is what he intends to do. However, his problem is that both sides of the political aisle are committed to seeing the Epstein files released, which became painfully evident to Patel when being interviewed last night on Fox News.
Speaking with Fox News Tuesday evening, Patel insinuated that there were some documents related to the investigation of child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein that can’t be readily released.
“Mr. Director, our viewers also are just—they are chomping at the bit on why it took the Epstein files so long to be released,” said host Laura Ingraham. “Any regrets there? Was that an unforced error, should we have gotten them out earlier? Just get them all out there? Just thought I’d give you a chance to react to that.”
“Yeah, look, this FBI has produced 40,000 pages of documents to Congress. To put that in comparison, [Christopher] Wray put out 13,000 in seven years and [James] Comey put out 3,000,” Patel responded, referring to his two predecessors.
Of course, Wray and Comey were not mandated by a law passed specifically to release the documents. After months of dragging their feet, Republicans in both chambers of Congress passed a bill to release the investigation files related to Epstein and his potential associates. Donald Trump signed the bill on November 19, starting a 30-day timer on the documents’ release.
“We’re committed to transparency. We are putting out as much as we can that is lawful and that is not prohibited by court orders. And those are the things the DOJ is fighting, still, with judges in court to make sure we can reveal everything without breaking the law,” Patel continued.
“That’s what we’re committed to doing. We’re doing it as fast as we can,” Patel added, before abruptly changing the topic.
It will be intriguing to see what Patel argues is “unlawful” or “prohibited by court orders.” Next to the off the wall legal pronouncements that Stephen Miller makes, this should be a real hoot. At the very least Patel is signalling that he intends to delay and obfuscate, but will he actually willfully and illegally conceal data that it has already been determined that the public has a right to? We’re going to find out.
