Kash Patel told Congress there was “no credible information” about trafficking to others. Internal emails reference 10 co-conspirators.
I have a stupid little rule in the GriftMatrix: three investigation tags and you earn a suspect node. Not because I think I’m a prosecutor, but because patterns matter.
So congratulations to FBI Director Kash Patel. He just made the cut.
Back in September, you may recall that Patel told the Senate Judiciary Committee the FBI had “no credible information” that Jeffrey Epstein trafficked young women to anyone besides himself. 
That line aged like milk.
Last Tuesday before Christmas, the Justice Deartment released a fresh tranche of Epstein records under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Buried in that release were DOJ emails from July 2019, when Epstein was still alive and federal prosecutors were actively building the case. Those emails explicitly reference “10 co-conspirators.” Not “possible.” Not “suspected.” Co-conspirators. 
Another email from 2020 references a memo about “co-conspirators we could potentially charge.” Another references an “86-page co-conspirator update memo” drafted by prosecutors. 
If you’re wondering why I’m hung up on the word co-conspirator, it’s because I’m not interested in vibes. In federal practice, prosecutors do not casually label people co-conspirators in internal case work unless they believe those people were part of the criminal enterprise and the evidence can support that theory. It’s not a conviction, but it is not gossip, either. It’s a serious, intentional designation that sits upstream of charging decisions.
Which means Patel’s “no credible information” line is not just wrong. It’s a lie.
Because the Justice Department’s own files show federal prosecutors discussing co-conspirators and drafting charging memos years before Patel said the FBI had nothing credible. So, either Patel didn’t know what was in the files, or he knew and chose to say the opposite. Pick your poison.
And before anyone tries to wave this off with “well, the FBI and DOJ are different,” save it. Patel is not an uninformed commentator. He is the FBI Director testifying to Congress about a high-profile case that his agency investigated and that DOJ prosecuted. If your job is to know what’s in the file, and you publicly declare the file contains nothing, then the file shows up holding an 86-page memo labeled “co-conspirator update,” you don’t get to act surprised.
Now zoom out, because the cover story here is almost as interesting as the lie.
Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act in November, requiring DOJ to release Epstein-related records, with appropriate redactions to protect victims. The deadline was December 19, 2025. DOJ missed it, then said it was reviewing more than 5.2 million pages and pulled in hundreds of attorneys to do the review. 
Meanwhile, lawmakers started threatening contempt over heavy redactions and what they described as an incomplete release. That’s not me being dramatic. That’s members of Congress openly floating contempt for the sitting Attorney General over an already-passed transparency law.
And right in the middle of this mess, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer put a finer point on it, calling on DOJ to release more details about the ten possible co-conspirators, how they were involved, and why they were not prosecuted?
Those are the questions. Not because I think the internet needs another Epstein frenzy, but because this is how power protects itself. The public gets a headline. The system gets quiet names, quiet memos, quiet decisions, and then a quiet insistence that there’s “no credible information” of anything bigger than the one guy who conveniently died in custody.
That gap is not an oversight. That’s a choice. And when the FBI Director tells Congress there’s “no credible information” of trafficking to others, while the DOJ record shows prosecutors discussing co-conspirators, it starts to look less like confusion and more like an effort to keep the public locked inside the smallest possible version of the story.
This is where people get nervous and try to soften everything with legal caveats. Fine. Here are the legal caveats, in plain English.
Saying something false to Congress is a crime. 18 U.S.C. 1001 covers materially false statements to the federal government, including Congress, in many contexts. Perjury statutes can also apply if the testimony is under oath and meets specific elements. I’m not charging Kash Patel with anything. I’m saying the documented record now publicly conflicts with his categorical public claim, and that conflict is exactly the kind of thing that triggers legal scrutiny in any normal universe.
But we do not live in a normal universe. We live in a universe where investigating whether the FBI Director misled Congress would run through the Department of Justice, which is currently taking heat for slow-walking and heavily redacting the Epstein document release in the first place. 
See the problem.
This is why transparency laws exist. Not because Congress is noble, not because DOJ is evil, but because institutions naturally hoard information that could embarrass them, implicate their friends, or expose their failures. Without a legal forcing function, those emails stay buried, those memos stay internal, and Patel’s “no credible information” line lives on as the official bedtime story.
And I can already hear the predictable response: “Co-conspirator could mean a lot of things.” Sure. It could mean prosecutors were exploring theories that didn’t pan out. It could mean names were attached to evidence that was insufficient to charge. It could mean the case hit a wall for reasons the public doesn’t understand.
All of that might be true.
But if that’s the situation, the honest answer from the FBI Director is not “no credible information.” The honest answer is, “There are investigative materials and prosecutorial memos referencing potential co-conspirators, and I can’t discuss specifics in open session.” That’s how adults talk when the file is complicated.
Patel didn’t do that. He went with the clean, categorical denial. And now the denial is colliding with DOJ documentation that uses the exact word he claimed did not credibly apply.
So, welcome to the suspect list, Kash. 
If the released emails mention ten co-conspirators and an 86-page update memo, then the most valuable thing still missing is obvious: names and decisions. Who were they. What was the evidence? Who declined to charge? And why?
That’s the difference between “failure to prosecute” and “decision to protect.” And when the people in charge insist there was “no credible information,” while their own paper trail suggests the opposite, it starts to feel less like bureaucracy and more like a protection racket.
Sources
https://www.axios.com/2025/09/16/kash-patel-hearing-epstein-trafficking
https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-questions-patel-at-fbi-oversight-hearing
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/epstein-files-released-documents-2025/
https://www.justice.gov/epstein
https://www.opb.org/article/2025/12/22/lawmakers-and-justice-department-spar-over-epstein-files/