The House Judiciary Committee questioned FBI Director Kash Patel on Wednesday about his leadership at the FBI, covering new ground on Charlie Kirk’s murder, the ongoing investigation of the sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and the patrol of online cyberspaces.
Patel gave a brief update on the investigation of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk’s assassination on the campus of Utah Valley University last Wednesday.
Discord, the platform where Tyler Robinson, the man accused of killing Kirk, is believed to have used to communicate about the murder, “has been working with our lawful process.“ The FBI is ”obtaining materials from them on a rolling basis,” Patel said.
Patel also said the roof at Utah Valley University that officials say Kirk was shot from was “readily accessible through an exterior stairwell,” adding, “Anyone could have gotten on it.”
Accusations of political violence on the left
Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, D-Calif., and Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, referenced conflicting reports of which side of the political aisle has seen and encouraged more political violence.
“You cannot be intellectually honest and say that this problem is on both sides,” Hunt said. “We’ve gotten to a point in America where violence is encouraged. We have a former president of the United States that opens up his campaign in 2019, that’s Joe Biden, by saying his opponent is an ‘existential threat to this country.’”
He continued, “People you disagree with are not existential threats. They are not Nazis, they are not fascists, they are not racist, they are not deplorable, they are not irredeemable — they are your fellow Americans who have a different perspective on how government should run and what government should look like.”
Hunt then asked how many cities have seen violent riots and protests following Kirk’s death. “Zero,” he said. “No riots. No looting, no killing, none. We simply gathered and prayed for his soul, his family, and this country, because that’s exactly what we represent.”
Hunt also submitted questions to investigate Thomas Crooks, who attempted to assassinate President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, last summer.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., addressed Hunt during his allotted time. “I want to caution my colleagues on one-sided violence in this country,” he said, referencing the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“You want me to sit here and get painted with one brush. The whole left. No, no, there are extremes on the left, and there are extremes on the right, and we should tackle that. But to come here and just look at us and say we all just support what’s going on in the extremes is why we can’t solve anything in this building,” Moskowitz said.
The Jeffrey Epstein argument resumes
Several representatives showed video of Patel before being appointed FBI director, in which he said Epstein’s “black book” was in possession of former FBI Director Christopher Wray, and all he needed to do was release it to the public.
However, at the Judiciary Committee meeting, Patel painted the picture as much more complicated.
Patel criticized the way Alex Acosta originally brought the Epstein case in 2006, which had a limited search warrant, search window and investigative window.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., submitted a series of emails to the committee’s records that were sent from victims of Jeffrey Epstein. “They are making FOIA requests to get their own FBI files and not having any success,” Massie said.
Massie then indirectly quoted Patel, who had said the FBI was constrained by limited search warrants from 2006 to 2007, and the non-prosecution agreement hamstrung future investigations.
But, “those constraints only apply to southern district of Florida,” Massie said. “They do not apply to the southern district of New York — the location of the 2019 sex trafficking indictment,” which produced many documents.
Massie said that victims who cooperated with the FBI say their documents detail at least 20 men, including bankers, a prince, a Hollywood producer, a high-profile individual in the music industry, a high-profile government official, a former politician, an owner of an Italian company, a rock star, a magician and at least six billionaires.
Patel said he had not personally reviewed those documents.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., asked, “So why haven’t you released the names of Epstein’s co-conspirators in the rape and sex trafficking of young girls?”
Patel answered, “Everything that has been lawfully permitted to be released has been released.”
Patel wants the FBI to tackle cyberspace
Patel said the FBI needs to be given the authority to go into and work with America’s online private sector.
With new information on Tyler Robinson’s seemingly normal upbringing, there has been renewed scrutiny of dark online spaces. Patel said the “root cause” of the problem in this case are online groups “infesting the minds of our children and infecting them with radical ideology.”
“In 2025, the cyberspace needs to be tackled,” Patel said.
He continued. “There are too many social media platforms, there are too many gaming platforms, there are too many places for people in America and around the world to get together without their parents knowing anything about it, without their school teachers knowing anything about it.”