Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) admitted Wednesday that he "wouldn't be surprised" if President Donald Trump was in the Jeffrey Epstein files.
"I wouldn't faint from surprise that there are a lot of other important people named in those files and the American people want to know who they are, and that's perfectly understandable," Kennedy said in an interview with CNN's Kasie Hunt.
Hunt asked Kennedy if he thought Trump was one of those people.
"I asked [FBI Director Kash Patel] yesterday, point blank, I said, 'who else, if anyone, besides Epstein, were these young women trafficked to, and he said, 'Nobody.' And that's fine. I'm not saying he was lying. I don't know one way or the other, I'm just saying that... they're going to have to release the files and let people decide for themselves."
Hunt asked if the move to keep the files unreleased is a cover-up.
"I don't know. I have no idea," Kennedy said. "But I have been saying since the beginning of this, it's not complicated. Here's what the American people are thinking. They've been listening to all this for several years, and they follow it, pretty closely. And here's what they're thinking, 'OK, Epstein is a pig. He trafficked young women, some of whom were minors, he trafficked them in part, and maybe in hope to himself, but he had a lot of friends and a lot of important people. Who else did he traffic these young girls to?"
"That's a very important question and the Justice Department, to which the president has kicked this issue, is going to have to answer that. It's just that simple. It's not going away," he added.
Kennedy, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is among the group of senators questioning Patel this week in Washington, D.C. Patel has come under fire for his missteps during the Charlie Kirk killing investigation and other ongoing questions over his leadership in the agency, including the growing request from lawmakers to release the Epstein files.
"I think you're going to have to to do more to satisfy the American people's understandable curiosity in that regard," Kennedy told Patel during the hearing Wednesday. "I don't know, but they're going to have to put them out sooner or later."
Patel promised he and the FBI would investigate the birthday book, a collection of letters and drawings handed to Congress earlier this month. He said he couldn't confirm if Trump's signature was his in the book and bawdy letter written to Epstein on his 50th birthday.
"I'm not a handwriting expert," Kennedy said, adding that Epstein and Trump were running buddies in their younger days.
"I do think that the FBI... but also the Justice Department... understands they're going to have to release these documents," Kennedy said. "They decided to do it piecemeal through the House Committee. Frankly I wouldn't do it that way, I'd rip the band-aid off. I'd just put it all out there in front of God and country. The American people, they don't read Aristotle every day; they're too busy earning a living, but they're smart enough to figure this out. But I'm not in charge."
House Republicans blocked a subpoena Wednesday to release bank records connected to Epstein.
The White House may have pressured House Republicans to block it, Kennedy said.
