According to a former Southern District of New York prosecutor, FBI Director Kash Patel was playing fast and loose with the truth during his congressional testimony this past week, in particular when when he was asked about the notorious Jeffrey Epstein files.

Patel’s job performance was put under the microscope this past week in two highly contentious hearings as he tried to fend off questions about the convicted pedophile as well as his conduct overseeing the shooting of far-right gadfly Charlie Kirk.

Appearing on MSNBC’s “The Weekend,” former assistant U.S. Attorney Kristy Greenberg took exception to Patel’s claims about the Epstein files and why he won’t release them in their entirety.

“That narrative makes no sense as to the release of the files at large,” she told the co-hosts. “What I'd say is Kash Patel said a few things –– first, he said, I legally cannot turn over the Epstein files, the judges are preventing me from doing it, court orders are preventing me from doing it. Not true.”

“There's actually a court order from the Epstein judge that clearly says you can release the Epstein files,” she elaborated. “That would be actually the best way to inform the public. It would be the way that –– rather than the grand jury testimony, that's a snippet of hearsay, This is everything. This is interview reports, this is search warrants, and that is material that is not protected by secrecy rules.”

“And so that is material that can be completely disclosed to the American people,” she explained. “And the logical party to do that is the government. Then he said, ‘Well, we don't, we're not in the business of putting out information that's not credible.’ But you put out Ghislaine Maxwell's interview! And your Department of Justice said that the number two [Todd Blanche], who interviewed her, said he couldn't make a credibility finding, which, by the way, she was not credible.”

“She quite clearly lied in that interview. But if you're going to put out one, how do you not how do you justify not putting out what the victims have said? It doesn't make sense,” she concluded.

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President Donald Trump is set to address the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, though critics are condemning the president for undermining the very intergovernmental organization the United States helped create.

“The Trump administration’s approach to the UN has been destructive and at times vindictive,” said Richard Gowan, who leads the International Crisis Group think tank as its director, speaking with the Wall Street Journal in a report published Saturday. “The administration seems immune to concerns about reputational damage.”

Under the second Trump administration, the United States slashed its funding to the UN, clawing back around $1 billion in previously-approved funding for the intergovernmental body, and has been without an UN ambassador for eight months until Friday when the Senate confirmed Mike Waltz for the position.

Trump has also regularly criticized the UN in a manner critics say have undermined the organization’s legitimacy and standing on the world stage.

“When do you see the United Nations solving problems?” Trump said back in late 2016. “They don’t. They cause problems. So, if it lives up to the potential, it’s a great thing. And if it doesn’t, it’s a waste of time and money.”

The Trump administration’s animosity toward the group, said Robert Anthony Wood, a former career ambassador who works for the UN, was not only undermining the organization’s legitimacy, but was counter to Trump’s stated goal of putting “America first.”

“The U.N. is a useful foreign policy tool,” Wood said, speaking with the Wall Street Journal. “What could be more ‘America First’ than advancing U.S. interests using a major foreign policy tool we actually first created?”

A panel designed to shape national vaccine policy made up entirely of new appointments by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy held a series of chaotic first meetings Thursday and Friday that was plagued with distractions, missteps and misinformation in what health experts decried as a “shipwreck.”

That panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – part of HHS – had its 17 former members removed by RFK Jr. and replaced, with its new members holding their first meetings Thursday and Friday. Health experts who observed the meetings said the panel’s discussions were “troubling.”

“It’s troubling to see the erosion of the committee’s integrity,” said Sandra Fryhofer, a physician with nearly two decades of experience working as a liaison for the American Medical Association, speaking to the panel according to a report Saturday from the Washington Post.

“We’re concerned about how vaccine recommendations are being developed by this new panel. Data is being selectively used to justify specific conclusions rather than considering all of the available evidence.”

Members of the panel floated several concerns over COVID-19 vaccines during the meetings, including concerns that the vaccines may have links to increased rates of cancer and autism, or that they could contaminate a person’s DNA, all claims that have either been thoroughly debunked or lack any scientific evidence.

Panelists also voted to stop recommending a combination of vaccines to toddlers during their Thursday meeting – measles, mumps, rubella and chicken pox vaccines – but voted the next morning to provide the same combination of vaccines to toddlers in a confusing, contradictory vote, the Washington Times reported.

One panelist blamed her mother’s cancer on a COVID-19 vaccine booster shot, while other panel members were largely distracted, such as panelist Robert Malone, who during the meetings posted on social media repeatedly about transgender people, Turning Point USA, and about his impending appearance on a podcast with Roseanne Barr.

During the chaos, one meeting attendee could be heard uttering “you’re an idiot.”

“What we're seeing is what happens when individuals who don't have a basic understanding about how vaccines are delivered are making these crucial policy decisions for the American public,” said Sean T. O’Leary, the chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics committee on infectious diseases, speaking with the Washington Post.