FBI Director Kash Patel insisted Wednesday that multiple recent court orders bar him from releasing thousands of agency documents related to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, telling members of Congress he would not defy the judges’ rulings.
“I’m not going to break the law to satisfy your curiosity,” Patel said while testifying for the second day of congressional oversight hearings, sparring with Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who demanded to know why more files had not been released, Politico reported.
Raskin accused Patel of “not keeping your word” on the files concerning Epstein, who died in federal custody in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide.
“You said you would release all the materials under your control,” Raskin told Patel, who responded, “Has anyone released more information than I have?”
Raskin argued that while additional information has been made public, it is being released only in “dribs and drabs.”
The recent court orders came after the Trump administration asked federal judges for permission to release grand jury materials from the cases of Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for aiding his crimes.
Judges responding to the request noted that the grand jury material is limited and that much of it was already made public during court proceedings.
“The information contained in the Epstein grand jury transcripts pales in comparison to the Epstein investigation information and materials in the hands of the Department of Justice,” U.S. District Judge Richard Berman, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, wrote in a 14-page opinion last month.
Berman wrote that the Trump administration already had the power to release the records, as it “is the logical party to make comprehensive disclosure to the public.”
He also stressed that the FBI’s materials are not subject to grand jury secrecy and said the administration’s push to release those transcripts was a “diversion from the breadth and scope of the Epstein files in the government’s possession.”
“The government is the logical party to make comprehensive disclosure to the public of the Epstein files,” Berman also wrote. “The grand jury testimony is merely a hearsay snippet of Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged conduct.”
Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., also pressed Patel on the grand jury files, arguing that the court orders on those transcripts had no bearing on his ability to release other documents.
“Why are you not going to a court, like you did for the grand jury testimony?” Goldman asked. “You are hiding the Epstein files, Mr. Patel. You are part of the cover-up.”
Patel maintained that other sealed and protective orders from the criminal cases bar him from releasing additional information.
Meanwhile, Patel also testified Wednesday that he has never spoken to President Donald Trump about the Epstein files, and told Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., that Trump was never an FBI informant in the case, a claim that was made and then revised by House Speaker Mike Johnson earlier this month, reports Axios.
The director also told Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., that he does not know how many times Trump’s name appears in the Epstein files and said there were no photos showing Trump with girls of an “uncertain age.”
Two weeks ago, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released a trove of documents obtained from the Department of Justice concerning Epstein. On Friday, the DOJ is expected to begin turning over more records to Congress following a subpoena from the committee.
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