Kash Patel says Jeffrey Epstein was not an FBI asset

Responding to Grassley, Patel said, “Mr. Chairman, I can only speak to the FBI as the director of the FBI, and Mr. Epstein was not a source for the FBI.”

FBI Director Kash Patel appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee. (Photo: AP)

It has long been rumoured that late financier and sex offender Epstein was an intelligence asset of a government, though evidence has not been provided to support this claim. Various online conspiracy theories have linked Epstein to the FBI, CIA, and even Israel’s Mossad.

Recently, House Speaker Mike Johnson had claimed that President Trump was an FBI informant in the Epstein, only to walk it back later.

‘No credible information Epstein trafficked girls’

On the probe in the Epstein case, Patel says FBI has ‘no credible information’ that Epstein trafficked teenage girls to others.

“There is no credible information — none. If there were, I would bring the case yesterday that he trafficked to other individuals,” Patel said, while also acknowledging that previous investigations of Epstein were limited.

Senator John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, said that kind of answer was unlikely to satisfy demands to release more information.

“This issue is not going to go away,” Kennedy said. “And I think the central question for the American people is this: They know that Epstein trafficked young women for sex to himself. They want to know who if anyone else, he trafficked these young women to.”

A poster showing President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein put up near the US Embassy in London. (Photo: AP)

Patel blames previous prosecutor

Patel said that the current case files only included “limited search warrants” between 2006 and 2007 because federal prosecutors in Florida had previously cut a secret deal with Epstein that allowed him to avoid prosecution for his previous actions.

“The original case involved a very limited search warrant, or set of search warrants, and didn’t take as much investigatory material it should have seized. If I were the FBI director, then it wouldn’t have happened,” Patel said.

According to Patel, the “original sin” in the Epstein case was the way it was initially brought by Alex Acosta in 2006 when he was the US attorney for the Southern District of Florida and his decision to allow Epstein to enter into a nonprosecution agreement.

“Still this administration, at the direction of President Trump, has done more to turn over all the credible information we are legally able to do so, and we will continue to work with Congress to achieve that end,” he said.