There's No "There" There

Probably to the disappointment of conspiracy theorists everywhere both FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino have concluded that on the basis of the evidence at hand Jeffrey Epstein really did kill himself in a prison cell six years ago, and there's no evidence of any foreign involvement in the attempts on Donald Trump's life last summer.

Jim Geraghty has a full report on these revelations here. He writes that,

FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino — two men who you figure would be highly motivated to find any sinister plot to kill Jeffrey Epstein before he would spill more secrets of powerful men, particularly if prominent Democrats were behind the plot — have concluded that Epstein killed himself.

The top two FBI officials also say that in their review of the assassination attempts against Donald Trump, they’ve looked for “any possible international connections to terrorism and adversaries alike” and concluded, “the ‘there’ you’re looking for is not there.”

The two men were guests on Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures show hosted by Maria Bartiromo where they had this exchange:

Bartiromo: You said Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide. People don’t believe it.

Patel: Well, I mean, listen. They have a right to their opinion, but as someone who has worked as a public defender, as a prosecutor, who’s been in that prison system, been in the Metropolitan Detention Center, who’s been in segregated housing, you know a suicide when you see one, and that’s what that was.

Bongino: He killed himself. Again, you want me to — I’ve seen the whole file. He killed himself.

On the matter of the Trump assassination attempts Geraghty reports this dialogue:

Bartiromo: I know you can’t talk about any active investigation, and our viewers understand that. How come we don’t have more information on the assassination attempts on President Trump?

Patel: There are two reasons. Two open, ongoing prosecutions. So, two of the investigations are obviously closed, because the individuals are dead, but there’s two live prosecutions. And so, we can’t get ahead of the federal court case. A lot of that information will come out in the federal court cases.

But we have personally invested our time in making sure that we have looked at all the, any possible international connections to terrorism and adversaries alike, and we’ve both been down to Quantico. We’ve both done the laboratory testing, we’ve both seen the explosives analysis, we’ve both seen the firearm and physically held it, we are all in on these investigations.

Bartiromo: Are we going to be surprised at what you learned?

Bongino: You know what, Maria? Kash is not kidding, we’ve been personally briefed extensively on every single detail, nugget, tendril of this case. One is actively in court right now, so out of respect for the case, it’s probably more appropriate that I stay quiet on that. However, I’m not going to tell people what they want to hear. I’m going to tell you the truth, and whether you like it or not is up to you.

If there was a big, explosive “there” there — given my history as a Secret Service agent, and my personal friendship as a director does with the president, give me one logical, sensible reason we would not have — if you can think of one, there isn’t. In some of these cases, the “there” you’re looking for is not there. And I know people — I get it, I understand. It’s not there. If it was there, we would have told you.

Despite this testimony from two very big supporters of President Trump, I doubt that either issue - the Epstein affair or the assassination attempts - will be put to rest. You can read more on this at Geraghty's column at the above link.