Kash Patel's 'transparency' brag brutally fact-checked on social media

FBI Director Kash Patel claimed in a social media post on X Monday that under his leadership, his agency was delivering “the transparency I promised,” but the platform’s user-generated fact-checking system flagged the statement as being misleading, particularly on Patel’s failed promises to pursue potential co-conspirators of Jeffrey Epstein.

“The transparency I promised is being delivered by this FBI,” Patel wrote Monday in a post that as of Wednesday had amassed more than 5.5 million views. The following day on Tuesday, however, a “Community Note” appeared under Patel’s post, and one that labeled his comments as inaccurate.

“The Trump campaign promised to release the full Epstein files, which it still has not done,” the Community Note reads, which only appears on posts after receiving a set number of positive ratings from users. The note also includes links to several reports detailing Patel’s past promises to pursue potential co-conspirators of Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

Patel was among many top Trump administration officials who, before joining the administration, aggressively promoted theories about Epstein, theories that suggested the FBI and other federal agencies under the Biden administration were involved in an active cover-up to protect Epstein’s wealthy and powerful associates.

While testifying before a House committee last month, Patel was put on the spot when Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) played a video of Patel alleging that Epstein’s supposed “Black Book” of contacts was “under direct control of the director of the FBI,” and suggested that it was being hidden to protect Epstein’s alleged co-conspirators.

Now director of the FBI himself, Patel has failed to release much of the evidence and documents related to Epstein currently held by the FBI, a sizable share of it acquired when law enforcement raided Epstein’s home in 2019 and seized hundreds of lewd photos and other evidence, including CDs with hand-written labels bearing phrases like “Young [Name] + [Name].”