Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, Director Patel, I watched some of your Senate hearing yesterday when Senator Kennedy asked you, you’ve seen most of the files, who, if anyone, did Epstein traffic these women to besides himself? You replied, according to the transcript, there is no credible information that he trafficked them to anyone else.
You also said somewhere in the hearing and here today that the problem is that the case files are constrained by limited search warrants from 2006 to 2007 and that the nonprosecution agreement hamstrung future investigations. Those constraints only apply to Southern District of Florida. They do not apply to Southern District of New York.
The location of the 2019 sex trafficking indictment which produced many things including a series of FD302 documents. According to victims who cooperated with the FBI in that investigation, these documents in FBI possession, your possession, detail at least 20 men, including Mr. Jess Staley, CEO of Barkclay’s Bank, who Jeffrey Epstein traffked victims to.
Victims including minors such as Virginia Roberts Euprey. May she rest in peace. That list also includes at least 19 other individuals. One Hollywood producer worth a few hundred million dollars. One royal prince. One high-profile individual in the music industry, one very prominent banker, one high-profile government official, one high-profile former politician, one owner of a car company in Italy, one rock star, one magician, at least six billionaires, including a billionaire from Canada.
We know these people exist in the FBI files, the files that you control. I don’t know exactly who they are, but the FBI does. Have you launched any investigations into any of these people? And have you seen these 302 documents? Sir, I have asked my FBI agents to review the entirety of the Epstein files and bring forth any credible information.
And we’re working with Congress not only to divulge that information and produce it to you, but any investigations that arise from any credible investigation will be brought. There have been no new materials brought to me launching a new um indictment. ; So, is is is the loophole here or is it your assertion that these uh victims aren’t credible that the 302s maybe didn’t produce credible statements that rise to a probable cause? It’s not my assertion, sir.
It’s the assertion of um two different United States attorneys offices from three separate administrations who investigated those same materials in lifetime. the 302 documents in the FBI’s possession. ; They reviewed all that. Yes, sir. ; And and so have you reviewed those 302 documents that where the victims name the people who victimized them? ; If I personally know, but the FBI has.
; So how can you sit here and and in front of the Senate and say there are no names? ; I said all ; I named one today. I I said we are not in the we are not in the practice at the Department of Justice FBI of releasing victim’s names. That is not what we do. We are also not in the habit of releasing incredible information.
That’s not what we do. But multiple authorities have looked at the entirety of what we have. ; Okay, I got to move on here. Were you present when the AG uh had the White House event when she released the binders to social media influencers? ; I was. Yes. So, if you’re willing to meet with social media influencers who stood to benefit from the sensational and sad stories of these victims, will you meet with the victims as well? ; The FBI will meet with anyone who has no information.
; Will you personally meet with them? ; The FBI and the professionals who are handling the cases will ; Were you instructed that it was important to release the documents to the oversight committee on the day of uh my introduction of the discharge petition to release these files? I don’t know what day that was. So, no.
Well, they were released that day and there were victim’s names who weren’t redacted because it was they were in such a rush and the victims are not happy about that. Um, have you investigated any of the CIA connections? Have you seen the CIA file on Jeffrey Epstein? And if you wanted to see it, would they show it to you? Well, I can speak for the FBI and that’s presuming there’s a CIA case file and I’ve reviewed everything that the inter agency, not I, the FBI that was provided to us.
; Would you would you be willing to look at the CIA file on Jeffrey Epstein? ; If there is such a file and if it has not already been been turned over to the FBI, the FBI will look at any new investigative leads. ; Um, have you made any progress on the pipe bomb investigation January 6th? And have you made any progress on the motive of the Las Vegas shooter? ; Uh on the as to the first, it’s an ongoing investigation and we have made progress.
As to the second, sir, I’ll have to get back to you. ; Mr. Patel, before you joined the FBI, you had very strong opinions about what the FBI was hiding regarding Jeffrey Epstein. In a September 2023 interview with Glenn Beck, you said the black book is under the quote direct control of the director of the FBI. In December 2023, you said, “Let us know who the pedophiles are.
” Even for a short time after becoming FBI director, in February of 2025, you tweeted, quote, “There will be no coverups, no missing documents, no stone left unturned.” In June, you told Joe Rogan, quote, “We’ve reviewed all the information. We’re going to give you every single thing we have and can.” But then suddenly in July, everything changed.
You and Attorney General Pam Bondi released one video and said that there was nothing more to see. Your July memo says you uncovered more than 300 gigabytes of data and physical evidence, but that you had decided no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted. That is a quote. I think what happened, Mr.
Patel is that suddenly you discovered that Donald Trump’s name was all over these files and you started a giant cover up. So you are under oath, Mr. Patel. You just testified to Mr. Swallwell that you did not speak to the president about the Epstein files. To your knowledge, did Attorney General Pam Bondi speak to the president about what was in the Epstein files? ; I can’t speak for Attorney General Pam Bondi.
So to your knowledge, you don’t have any information. The question was, do you have any knowledge? Do you have any knowledge? ; I can’t speak. ; You are refusing to answer the question. So let me tell you that the Wall Street Journal reported that in May, Bondi told Trump that he was in the Epstein files and at the same meeting said that the DOJ did not plan to release the files.
Yesterday you testified to Senator Kennedy that there was quote no credible information that Epstein trafficked girls to anyone else and that you have quote continuously and publicly ask the public to come forward with more information and we’ll look into it today in response to Mr. Massiey’s question. You appear to say that the survivors were not credible. These are survivors.
; That’s not at all what I said. ; Okay, great. And I’m going to ask you this in a second, but let me tell you about the survivors and let’s bring them up here into the room. These are women who came to the hill and testified that they were groomed and raped at the age of 14 and 16 years old and they called to meet with the president and to meet with the FBI and to have people investigate their claims.
Some of them have never testified before. If you are so interested in getting the public to submit any information, why have you not met with them? You said you haven’t met with them. Have you met with them? I’ll give you one more chance. ; My job as the FBI director is to inform ; is the answer yes or no TO WHETHER OR NOT YOU MET WITH THESE WOMEN WHO WERE sexually abused and raped.
any insinuation by you or any people on your side that I am not manhunting child predators and sex traffickers just look at the stats and you talk about coverups man talk about coverups I will take where were you during the Obama [laughter] and Biden administrations when these so-called coverups were going on why did anyone in those administrations talk to any of these purported witnesses I had order single person to provide credible information belongs to the gentle lady from Washington ; and I’m going to take another you accuse
the witness of something he’s allowed to respond that’s how it works he didn’t even excuse me fair but this is not fair and you will get this is my time and he said that the witnesses were not seconds of time ; I’m going to get an additional minute of time because that’s what you’ll get a minute you’ll get some seconds what we think is is under five minutes you don’t get to demand how much time you get that’s not how it works ; Mr.
Patel, are the victims of the Jeffrey Epstein horrific trafficking ring? Are they credible? ; Any person with information about ongoing sexual trafficking? ; I’m asking you if they’re credible, ; ma’am. I’m commenting on the evidence we have. We have routinely asked for people to come forward with more evidence and we will look at it.
And the evidence that we have was the same evidence that the Biden and Obama justice departments had. They determined, not me. They determined that that information was not credible. ; He’s not letting me even ask my questions. ; You ask the questions, he gives an answer. You don’t, you may not like what he says, but that doesn’t mean you get to interrupt answering my question.
; Mr. Chairman, could we restore the gentle lady 45 seconds so she can ; We’ll give her additional 30 seconds, which is what I said. ; I’m going to keep taking my time because you’ll take the time that you get. ; You are not answering the question. The question is, you just don’t like these women.
Are these women credible? It’s a yes or no answer. ; I have answered the question and I’m telling you, I’m the only FBI director that has welcomed new information in this case. This administration is the only one that has welcomed any new information in this case. ; Is there a yes or no? ; Present new credible information. Present new information.
; Are the victims credible or victims not? ; I’ll tell you what happened in the last Trump administration. ; Credible or not? You ; victims credibly came forward and you know what happened? President Trump authorized the indictments of Jeffrey Epstein, not Biden, not Obama. President Trump called the entire thing a de a a Democratic hoax.
So I would like to ask ; the gentle lady’s time is expired. I gave her the additional 45 seconds she requested. The gentle lady yields back. The gentleman from New Jersey is recognized for this. You would meet with the women who were sexually abused and raped and groomed at the ages of Washington YEARS OLD.
ARE YOU GOING TO COVER UP? ARE YOU GOING TO CONTINUE FOR THE RICH AND POWERFUL MEN, including those that might be on this committee? ; I can yell too, Mr. Chairman, but I don’t want to yell. Time belongs to the gentleman from New Jersey. Are you going to testify? Mr. Patel, ; go ahead. ; Will you allow them to testify to you Patel? ; Thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman, and welcome. Director Patel, you and I have not had the opportunity to meet and uh alas, you failed to respond to the eight oversight letters I’ve sent you over the last seven months. Um, so we do have a lot of questions piling up for you, but I want to start with a word of praise. The first FBI director was JF Garhoover who uh steadfastly refused to hire women, African-Americans, and other minorities as agents.
And although he was a closeted homosexual who lived in domestic partnership for decades with Clyde Tullson, he also participated in anti-gay crusades, he aggressively promoted what we would today call white Christian nationalism. and he would undoubtedly be turning over in his grave to see as one of his successors a first generation Indian-American and a proud Hindu.
So I congratulate you on being a breakthrough in this sense and being a beneficiary of the civil rights movement that opened up the FBI and the federal workforce to lots of people who never would have been hired in its first decades. Alas, you share Jay Edgar Hoover’s dangerous obsession with blind loyalty over professionalism and effective public policy.
For Hoover, it was blind loyalty to him in keeping his secrets. For you, it’s blind loyalty to Donald Trump in keeping his secrets. During your confirmation, it was widely noted on all sides that your primary qualification was your unwavering loyalty to Trump. Unlike other directors, you had no work experience at the FBI, but you had made over a thousand media and political appearances in support of Trump’s campaign.
Your Senate confirmation vote was 51 to 49, the closest in history, with your opponents warning you were not qualified and had no interest in actually developing the qualifications for the job. I hoped that they were wrong. Uh, alas, they were not. While most other new FBI directors drew on their experience as FBI agents, you didn’t have that.
But you did write a picture book trilogy for children ages five and up based on your experience clashing with President Trump’s political enemies. In your book, you describe your literary alter ego, Cash the Knight, as a wacky, easily bored wizard carrying out King Donald’s vengeance by driving his enemies out of the kingdom.
In the books, King Donald is besieged by the evil Hillary Queen Town, but saved in the end by Cash. Then Catch goes on to catch mules who are stealing the 2020 election for the great King Donald from Sleepy Joe. And then in the third book, Cash takes down the dragon of the jalapenos, nicknamed the DOJ.
Your supporters had hoped that you would graduate from imagining yourself a romantic fairy tale knight to actually running America’s premier federal law enforcement agency. Alas, just as we’ve learned how dangerous it is to put a sciencedy antivaxer in charge of our public health, we’ve learned how danger it is to name as director of the FBI a man who thinks of himself as a fairy tale knight who keeps a firebreathing dragon named DOJ at home to forcibly drive villains out of the kingdom.
When Charlie Kirk was assassinated while his killer was still on the loose, you decided you didn’t need to be at FBI headquarters in Washington to work with your team while the chaotic manhunt unfolded. You spent your evening dining in a swanky Midtown Manhattan restaurant and tweeting out false information that the subject of the shooting was in custody, a statement you had to retract one hour later.
Your performance was so disturbing that even the mega base was alarmed. Culture warrior Christopher Rufo who just a few months ago sat in your chair as a Republican witness observed that you performed terribly and he called for your ouster. The FBA FBI might be able to survive your delusions of grandeur and the explosively volatile temper that was on display yesterday in the Senate.
But the intractable problem is that you are running the FBI not as a law enforcement agency charged with keeping the American people safe, but as a political enforcement agency working directly for the president’s vengeance campaign. 7 months in, it’s impossible to overstate the destruction, chaos, and demoralization you’ve brought to the FBI and its workforce and the resulting danger your actions have caused to our country.
You’ve been systematically purging the FBI of its most experienced and qualified agents, division leaders, and experts in counterterror, counter intelligence, and cyber security. Precisely the people who have the expertise you lack, and which the FBI and the country need. They’ve been expelled from the ranks of the bureau simply because they did their duty investigating crimes, including those committed by the mob that attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and beat the hell out of more than 140 police officers, or simply because you
suspected them of being insufficiently loyal to Donald Trump. You illegally sacked Brian Driscoll, the former acting director of the bureau and a decorated counterterrorism expert who worked at the FBI for nearly 20 years. According to Driscoll, Driscoll, you told him, “Your own job, quote, depended on the removal of agents who worked on the cases against the president, regardless of whether the agents chose to work on those cases or not.
” You added, quote, “The FBI tried to put the president in jail, and he hasn’t forgotten it.” You forced out the leader of the Salt Lake City field office, Metab Say, just weeks before Charlie Kirk’s assassination, depriving the FBI of an experienced counterterrorism expert described by her colleagues colleagues as absolutely the best and legendary.
She would have led the FBI’s manhunt had she not been fired. When Trump decided that rounding up immigrants with no criminal records was more important than preventing crimes like human trafficking of women and girls, drug dealing, terrorism, and fraud, you ordered the 25 largest field offices to divert thousands of agents away from chasing down violent criminals, sex traffickers, fraudsters, and scammers to carry out this immigration crackdown.
Director Patel, you treated the men and women at FBI with disrespect and paranoia. You’ve assembled a roving band of freelancing henchmen within your office and charged them with conducting unauthorized investigations, targeting and harassing career FBI employees. Amazingly, you forced senior leadership to repeatedly take polygraph tests to prove their political loyalty and pushed out leaders who refuse these demeaning exercises.
And now we’re seeing one very clear reason why you want to build a political FBI, the Epstein files. You want an FBI blindly loyal to Trump and to you as his enforcer so you can continue your cover up of a massive international sex trafficking ring with more than 1,000 victims betraying all of the survivors of the sexual violence.
Before you got into this job, you called for full release of the Epstein files, telling podcaster Benny Johnson that the only reason the list was not released by DOJ and FBI was quote because of who’s on that list. Upon your confirmation, you promised that quote there will be no cover-ups, no missing documents, no stone left unturned, and anyone from the prior current bureau who undermines this will be swiftly pursued.
This spring, you ordered hundreds of agents to pour over all the Epstein files, but not to look for more clues about the money network or the network of human traffickers. You pulled these agents from their regular counterterrorism or drug trafficking duties to work around the clock. Some of them sleeping at their desks to conduct a frantic search to make sure Donald Trump’s name and image were flagged and redacted wherever they appeared, whether an email, a text, a letter, an interview, a photograph, or a video. In May, Attorney General Bandi
reportedly told Trump that his name had indeed appeared multiple times throughout the Epstein files. And not long thereafter, in July, you and the attorney general released a memo claiming that quote, “No further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.” In a few short months, how did you go from being a crusader for accountability and transparency for the Epstein files to being a part of the conspiracy and cover up? The answer is simple.
You said it yourself, because of who’s on that list. Donald Trump’s relationship with Epstein over the years is well documented. A week ago, the oversight committee released Trump’s disturbing birthday book, Note to Epstein, written over a drawing of a woman’s naked body, referring to a quote wonderful secret. The oversight committee obtained the note from the Epstein estate, not from the FBI, raising questions again of whether the FBI has been withholding documents.
While you’re unleashing the FBI to cater to Trump’s desire to shut down the Epstein inquiry, the first nine months of the Trump presidency have seen a spate of political violence and domestic terror events. We saw deadly attacks on political figures on both the left and the right.
The brutal assassination of Minnesota Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband in the attempted murder of Democratic state senator John Hoffman and his wife who miraculously survived a combined 17 gunshots. We saw an arsonist set Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s residence on fire. And of course, last week we saw the horrific, cold-blooded assassination of Charlie Kirk in Utah that has shaken the nation.
One minute after Charlie Kirk was shot in the neck, um a 16-year-old shooter in Evergreen, Colorado, radicalized by white supremacist ideology online, opened fire and critically wounded two other students at Evergreen High School. We’ve seen lethal anti-semitic violence, including the murder of two young Israeli embassy staffers just blocks from the capital and then in the attack on a gathering of Jewish people in support of hostages held in Gaza in Boulder in June.
We’ve seen continued mass shootings at schools like the domestic terror incident at a Catholic school in Minneapolis last month which killed two children and wounded 18 others. And in August, a man fired more than 500 bullets at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, killing a police officer who was a Marine veteran and a father.
People like Melissa Hortman and Charlie Kirk should be able to participate in politics as elected officials or active citizens without being shot down in cold blood in the United States of America. People should also be able to go to elementary school, to middle school, to high school, to work, to the mall, and to church without being shot down in explosions of gun violence.
The important position of the FBI requires a leader who puts public safety and national security and the rule of law first. I’m afraid, Director Patel, you’ve given us reason to believe. You’ve used the powers of the FBI to serve Donald Trump and his agenda of partisan retribution. You’ve broken your promise not to do that.
You’ve betrayed Jeffrey Epstein’s victims and survivors. You’ve turned your back on the career law enforcement officers of the FBI. And as a result, you’ve le you’ve left all of us less less safe than before. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. ; Gentleman yields back. That’ll Director, the first time you saw Donald Trump’s name was in the Epstein files.
Did you close the files or keep reading? ; I have reviewed not the entirety of the files. So, I have ; You haven’t reviewed all of the Epstein files? ; Personally, no. ; You’re the director of the FBI. This is the largest sex trafficking case the FBI has ever been a part of. Buck stops at the top.
And your testimony today is you have not reviewed all the files. What I’ve been doing is busy providing the safest country this country has seen in modern US history in historic speed because the men and women of the FBI are given the resources to reduce the homicide rates, to reduce the drug trafficking rate, to reduce the amount of children that are being trafficked and the number of ; It sounds like those children being appreciate the director reviewing the files.
You said you don’t know the number of times Trump’s name appears in the files, so it could at least be a thousand times. Is that right? The number is a total misleading factor. We have not released anyone’s name. We have not released anyone’s name in the FC files that has not been credible. ; Director could have released every piece of legally permissible information.
You can characterize the numbers however you want it. ; You’re claiming my time. Director, ; it sounds like if you don’t know the number, it could at least be a thousand times, which ; it’s not. ; Is it at least 500 times? ; No. ; Is it at least 100 times? ; No. ; Then what’s the number? ; I don’t know the number, but it’s not that.
Do you think it might be your job to know the number? ; My job is to provide for the safety and security of this country. My job is not to engage in political innuendo so you can go out to the sticks and get your 22nd hit in your fundraising time. Keep going reclaiming your time because the people of California are being underserved by your representation.
; President is not implicated. Why not release everything that involves ; We have released everything the president and anyone else’s side that is credible and lawfully be able to be released. Your fixation on this matter and baseless accusations that I’m hiding pedophiles is disgusting. Anyone that says that needs to look at the stats alone and go back to the state of California who’s receiving the biggest surge in FBI resources through my redeployment because the cities of Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco,
director, remembering your oath to tell the truth, did you ever tell Donald Trump his name is in the files? ; I have never spoken to President Trump about the Epstein files. Did you ever tell the attorney general that Donald Trump’s name is in the Epstein files? ; The attorney general and I have had numerous discussions about the entirety of the Epstein files and the reviews conducted by our team.
; Did you tell the attorney general that Donald Trump’s name is in the Epstein files? ; And we have released where President Trump is a simple question. Did you tell the attorney general that the president’s name is in the Epstein files? ; During many conversations that the attorney general and I have had on the matter of Epstein, we have reviewed ; The question is simple.
Who ; did you tell the attorney general that Donald Trump’s name is in the Epstein files? Yes or no? ; Why don’t you try spelling it out? ; Yes or no? Director, ; use the alphabet. ; Yes or no? ; No. ABC. ; Director, it sounds like you don’t want to tell us. Did you tell the attorney general that Donald Trump’s name was in the Epstein files? ; Why don’t you try serving your constituency by focusing on reducing violent crime in this country and the number of pedophiles that are legally harbored in your sanctuary cities in
California? I’ll work with you on that regular order. Mr. Chairman, director belongs to gentleman from California. ; Did you tell the attorney general that Donald Trump’s name is in the FC files? ; Question has been asked and answered. ; You’ve not answered it, and we will take your evasiveness as a consciousness of guilt.
Director, did Donald Trump ever say to you, just find and release the entire truth? Don’t worry if I’m in it. ; The instructions from the administration were to release all credible information, and we have done that. Did Donald Trump ever provide information about Jeffrey Epstein as an informant? ; Donald Trump has not been, and I can only speak for the FBI, an informant of the FBI.
; So, director, you’ve played this cute shell game where you say you can’t release everything because the court has said that it legally is not allowed to be released, but the court calls Judge Richard Burman said that when you went to the court, quote, “Information contained in the Epstein grand jury transcripts pales pales in comparison to Epstein investigation information and materials in the hands of the Department of Justice.
” So, let’s move on. Director, you wrote a book called Government Gangsters. You identified 20 individuals in that book. You put me on that list, at the top of the list. Thank you. My children find it flattering. 20 of those individuals have been investigated or have had adverse actions. Director, considering that you have identified these people as quote government gangsters, will you recuse yourself from making any investigation decisions about these individuals? ; Anyone that has been terminated at the FBI has been done so failed to meet the
muster and their constitutional obligations work on the audiovisisual capabilities. ; I’m going to borrow your terminology and call on your entire career in Congress. has been a disgrace to the American people. You can reclaim your time all you want. Mr. Chairman, you’re going to allow a witness to speak this way.
; Mr. Chairman, would you The gentleman has no time. ; Mr. Chairman, would you admonish the witness not to insult members? ; Gentleman has no time. Mr. Chairman, just committee will remember. ; Quick point of order. Um, could the gentleman be extended an additional 20 seconds to complete his thoughts since the witness decided to interrupt him? ; And the witness will be able to respond if he wants. We’ll make sure.
My question is, will you, director, recuse yourself, yes or no, from investigating or making decisions about the 60 individuals, including myself, that you identified as government gangsters? Yes or no? ; Time of the gentleman has expired. The witness may respond if he would like. ; And the answer was no, as I heard.
