Kash Patel unloads all blame for botched Epstein probe onto ex-Trump official

FBI Director Kash Patel shifted all blame for the Trump administration’s botched handling of its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein onto a former Trump official during his testimony Tuesday in front of a Senate committee, blaming that official for having committed “the original sin.”

“I know that there's a lot of talk about Epstein, and I'm here to testify that the original sin in the Epstein case was the way it was initially brought by Mr. [Alexander] Acosta back in 2006,” Patel said, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“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.”

The Trump administration has received intense scrutiny for its fumbling of its investigation into Epstein, who died in 2019 awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges and is alleged to have run a blackmail operation targeting powerful figures. That scrutiny was in large part a product of the administration’s own making, with many top officials, including Patel, having promoted theories that Epstein’s crimes were being covered up by the government.

Acosta previously served as President Donald Trump’s labor secretary during his first term, and before that, was a federal prosecutor in Florida. During his tenure in law enforcement, Acosta offered Epstein a generous plea deal that granted broad immunity to Epstein and any potential co-conspirators from federal charges, despite the FBI having identified at least 40 potential minor victims of Epstein’s.

Acosta would later say that he offered Epstein the plea deal because he was told Epstein “belonged to intelligence,” that the matter was “above his paygrade” and that he should “leave it alone.”

Patel, deflecting blame for the botched investigation into Epstein, went on to further criticize the plea deal the convicted child sex abuser received from Acosta.

“Mr. Acosta allowed Epstein to enter in 2008 to a plea and non-prosecution agreement, which then the courts issued mandates and protective orders legally prohibiting anyone from ever seeing that material ever again without the permission of the court,” Patel said.

“The non-prosecution agreements also barred future prosecutions for those involved at that time. 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, and we will continue to work with Congress to achieve that end.”

Despite Patel’s pledge, the Justice Department continues to sit on a trove of files related to Epstein, with the latest batch of files – Epstein’s so-called ‘birthday book’ – coming from Epstein’s estate, and only due to a subpoena issued by the House Oversight Committee.