FBI Director Kash Patel’s insistence that the bureau has been delivering “transparency” didn’t go to plan.
Patel’s vague claim on X Monday—“The transparency I promised is being delivered by this FBI”—was soon slapped with several reminders that the Trump administration has been dragging its heels about releasing additional files related to dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
X users added context through three links. The first was a Forbes article explaining why Patel was “misleading” in claiming last month that court orders were blocking the release of the Epstein files.
The second link was a recap by House Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat, of Patel’s testimony to that body. Patel refused to answer several questions about Epstein, at one point choosing to recite his ABCs instead.
The final citation was a PBS NewsHour wrap-up from that same day of Patel’s testimony.
Patel and others in the Trump administration have faced increased pressure over the Epstein issue since July, when Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that no further Epstein files would be released. In February, though, she had said that the files were sitting on her desk.
Bondi, who herself refused to answer lawmakers’ questions on Epstein Tuesday, told Donald Trump that his name had appeared multiple times in the files, The Wall Street Journal reported in July.
Although the readers’ note on Patel’s post states that the Trump campaign “promised to release the Epstein files,” Trump himself gave qualified answers when asked about it twice during the campaign.
During a June 2024 Fox and Friends interview, Trump said: “I guess I would. I think that, less so, because you don’t want to affect people’s lives if it’s phony stuff in there because it’s a lot of phony stuff with that whole world. But I think I would.”
Democrats have contended that Fox News’ editing of Trump’s response in the version first aired on Fox & Friends Weekend mislead viewers into thinking he was firmly on the side of releasing the files.
Trump was also asked about Epstein files on the Lex Fridman Podcast. There, too, he was speculative.
“It’s very interesting, isn’t it?” Trump said. “It probably will be, by the way—probably.”
Patel’s post has been viewed 3.2 million times as of publication. X users in the replies criticized him with memes, mockery of the administration’s release of some heavily redacted Epstein-related files this winter, and claims that he has bungled this topic just as much as the investigation into Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
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