Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana pressed FBI Director Kash Patel on Thursday about whether convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein killed himself while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Epstein, who pled guilty to sex charges in 2008, committed suicide while awaiting trial after he was arrested in 2019 on new charges. Kennedy asked Patel if he would see the release about what happened to Epstein in his lifetime during a hearing held by the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies.
“Did Jeffrey Epstein hang himself or did somebody kill him?” Kennedy asked Patel, who responded. “Senator, I believe he hung himself in a cell in the Metropolitan Detention Center.”
“Are you going to release all the information about that?” Kennedy asked in response. “Senator, we are working through that right now with the Department of Justice.”
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Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters Wednesday that the FBI is still reviewing “tens of thousands” of videos in the possession of Jeffrey Epstein, some of which she described as “child porn.” Kennedy asked about the timeframe.
“When you think you’ll have it done, Kash?” Kennedy asked, with Patel responding, “I think… in the near future?”
“Like before I die?” Kennedy asked, drawing a chuckle from the FBI director, who said, “Senator… we are, we’ve been working on that and we are doing it in a way that protects victims and also doesn’t put out into the ether information that is irrelevant for production for the public, such as CSAM [child sexual abuse material].”
Epstein had extensive ties to celebrities, politicians and business executives, such as L Brands founder Lex Wexner, director Woody Allen, and Prince Andrew, even after his 2008 guilty plea to the sex charges. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates also met with Epstein a number of times, as did employees of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with Gates meeting with the disgraced financier as late as 2019 despite concerns his then-wife, Melinda, expressed according to a May 2021 report by the Wall Street Journal.
“I don’t know, I’ll speak to the attorney general about that. I really don’t know,” President Donald Trump told Daily Caller White House correspondent Reagan Reese when she asked about the delay in releasing the files during an April 22 White House event. “I know that we’ve done the RFK, the Kennedy, Martin Luther King is out there very shortly, so we’ll find out. But … we’ve really, really announced, we’re doing them in full transparency.”
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