FBI director Kash Patel has denied swirling resignation rumors over reported unhappiness at a justice division resolution to shut the guide on Jeffrey Epstein after administration officers teased an enormous reveal earlier within the yr.
In a Saturday social media publish, the company director stated: “the conspiracy theories simply aren’t true, by no means have been. It’s an honor to serve the President of the US – and I’ll proceed to take action for so long as he calls on me.”
Over the previous week, Maga hardliners, together with Georgia consultant Marjorie Taylor Greene, former White Home adviser Steve Bannon and – reportedly – FBI deputy director Dan Bongino, have been strongly important of a joint resolution by US lawyer normal Pam Bondi and the FBI to not launch additional details about Epstein held in authorities information, together with a so-called shopper listing.
Critics have slammed the FBI-justice division conclusion about Epstein’s official post-mortem that the disgraced financier had hung himself in his cell. Many have refused to just accept that, repeating a conspiracy principle that Epstein, who died in August 2019 whereas awaiting trial, was the truth is murdered to silence him.
“This systematic assessment revealed no incriminating ‘shopper listing’,” the memo said. “There was additionally no credible proof discovered that Epstein blackmailed outstanding people as a part of his actions. We didn’t uncover proof that might predicate an investigation in opposition to uncharged third events.”
Rumors of a rift between the FBI and the justice division over the memo have been denied by deputy lawyer normal Todd Blanche, who wrote on social media that there’s “no daylight” between the FBI and the Division of Justice management on the difficulty.
“I labored intently with [Kash and Bongino] on the joint FBI and DOJ memo relating to the Epstein Information. All of us signed off on the contents of the memo and the conclusions said within the memo. The suggestion by anybody that there was any daylight between the FBI and DOJ management on this memo’s composition and launch is patently false,” Blanche stated.
However on Friday, NBC Information reported that Bongino is contemplating stepping down from his publish on the FBI after a “heated confrontation” with Bondi over the difficulty.
“Bongino is out-of-control livid,” the one who has spoken with the deputy FBI director stated. “This destroyed his profession. He’s threatening to give up and torch Pam until she’s fired.”
Donald Trump has additionally grown testy with repeated questions on Epstein, who was as soon as a neighbor in Palm Seashore. He erupted on Tuesday when he was pressed on an obvious one-minute hole in a 10-hour video recorded outdoors of Epstein’s cell.
“Are you continue to speaking about Jeffrey Epstein?” he stated. “This man’s been talked about for years … Are folks nonetheless speaking about this man, this creep? That’s unbelievable.”
Bondi has since defined that the lacking minute of surveillance movie was merely the recording gear resetting itself, because it does each evening.
Nonetheless, it’s not clear that Maga hardliners are prepared to let the Epstein conspiracy theories go – they’ve supplied a relentless stream of fabric that supposedly helps their theories of a deep state.
However no proof has emerged that Epstein was engaged in a conspiracy to blackmail high-profile guests, together with Britain’s Prince Andrew, to his properties in New York, Florida, New Mexico and the US Virgin Islands.
The FBI-DoJ memo said that it had uncovered “a major quantity of fabric”, together with greater than 300GB of knowledge and bodily proof that included “a big quantity of pictures of Epstein, pictures and movies of victims who’re both minors or look like minors, and over ten thousand downloaded movies and pictures of unlawful baby intercourse abuse materials and different pornography”.
“Via this assessment, we discovered no foundation to revisit the disclosure of these supplies and won’t allow the discharge of kid pornography,” the memo stated.
