(NewsNation) — FBI Director Kash Patel declined an interview with Bill O’Reilly to discuss and possibly clear the air about the Jeffrey Epstein controversy, the political commentator told “CUOMO” on Wednesday.
“He turned me down, which is fairly shocking. Over the years, I’ve had a respectful relationship with him,” O’Reilly said. “He clearly didn’t want to come up against me. He did some softball interviews with other people he knew he could handle.”
Patel, who was a national security adviser in President Trump’s first term, was known for airing conspiracy theories about the 2019 jailhouse death of Jeffrey Epstein before becoming Trump’s FBI director early this year.
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In July, the FBI and Department of Justice issued a memo saying Epstein, a jet-setting sex trafficker of underage girls, died by suicide and there was no “Epstein client list” of influential people that could lead to additional prosecutions. Some members of the president’s political base were outraged.
O’Reilly said Patel could easily “swat” away criticisms and explain his about-face by simply saying, “Look, before I didn’t have access to the information I have now.” But Patel should “explain what the deuce is going on — that’s his job,” the commentator said.
As for Patel’s deputy director at the FBI, Dan Bongino, who also pushed conspiracy theories, O’Reilly had this to say: “Bongino I never thought should be in the federal government. He made his living on conspiracies. I don’t respect that. I don’t respect him.”
The Justice Department recently interviewed Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year federal prison sentence. This has sparked speculation that Trump may pardon Maxwell, depending on what she has to say.
O’Reilly said Maxwell should not receive a pardon “in a million years.”
“In fact, I’d send her to Devil’s Island,” he added.
