At a Senate hearing, Kash Patel is pressed on why the FBI hasn't released the entire Epstein file he promised. The questioner says the 302 witness interviews aren't covered by any court order and asks why they can't come out with victims' names redacted. Patel answers that the FBI is releasing "as much as legally allowed" and asks, "Do you know how court orders work?"
The receipt
- Who
- Rep. Jamie Raskin
- Where
- hearing - FBI Director Kash Patel oversight hearing (title says Senate; descript
- Original footage
- ABC News · watch the full video from this moment
- Length
- 47 seconds, unedited within the cut
Read the transcript
Why don't you just release the entire file as you promised to do? I literally just told you there are multiple federal court orders. I'm not going to break the law to satisfy your curiosity. You didn't join us when we filed court to release the court orders. You could have. You have lawyers. You could have shown up. You didn't do that. Let's talk about the witness interviews. 302s of witness interviews. Those are not subject to the court order. Those are not subject to any fictional sealed order for a search warrant. Why aren't you releasing those with the redacted names of the victims? We are releasing as much as legally allowed. That's why we went back to court. How is that not legally allowed? Sir, do you know how court orders work? Do you know how protective orders work? Actually, Mr. Patel, I was a real prosecutor for 10 years.
Machine transcript of the clip's audio; names are checked, small words may differ.