President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, said in a recently resurfaced interview that the FBI Director has the power to release major classified documents, including the manifesto left by Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale and the client list once kept by disgraced financier-turned-sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, and urged Trump to promise full declassification upon entering office.
Patel made the remarks in a December 2023 appearance on “Glenn TV,” when he told host Glenn Beck that the FBI Director has the authority to declassify both the “black book” used by Epstein and the ten or more notebooks full of writings left by Hale, the biological female who identified as a transgender man when she killed six at the Covenant School on March 27, 2023.
“That’s under direct control of the Director of the FBI,” said Patel in response to a question about who is authorized to release Epstein’s client list, in a portion of the interview posted to the social media platform X.
“Just like the manifesto from the Nashville school shooter from the Nashville school shooting,” Patel added. He told Beck, “It’s not the Nashville Police or PD saying we don’t want this out. The FBI airmailed into that operation and said this is not getting out.”
Do you guys even understand how amazing this Kash appointment is?!
Let me remind you pic.twitter.com/nLo4aIFuDF
— Defender of the Republic 🇺🇸 (@realdefender45) December 1, 2024
Patel further said the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) have created a financial incentive to compel the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) to comply with their wishes regarding the release of documents like Hale’s manifesto.
He told Beck, “They do that because, this is another government gangster operation, all these local law enforcement agencies get funding from the DOJ and FBI for local programs, and if you don’t cooperate, you’re not getting your million dollars for this. That’s a lot of money to these local districts. That’s how they play the game. That’s why you don’t have the black book.”
The interview occurred about 11 months before Americans voted to send Trump back to the White House, winning both the popular vote and Electoral College in a display Republicans argue gives the president-elect a mandate to rule.
“I think that’s something President Trump should run on. On day one, roll out the black book,” said Patel, before adding that the federal government needs “a central node” that is “continuously declassifying” information at the public’s request. “Just right out the door as long as it’s not a major threat to national security.”
He explained, “That’s another thing they do, they over classify… to protect the deep state.”
Both Star New Digital Media Inc. (SNDM), which owns and operates The Tennessee Star, and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy remain plaintiffs in the ongoing lawsuits to compel MNPD and the FBI to release Hale’s complete writings, and Patel’s comments resurfaced after Leahy and SNDM invited the DOJ and FBI to drop their opposition and allow the documents to be released in anticipation of the incoming Trump administration.
Despite the FBI and MNPD withholding hundreds of pages left by Hale, The Star obtained the killer’s 2023 notebook from a source familiar with the investigation in June, and published about 50 articles revealing its contents before publishing the journal in its entirety after obtaining legal representation in September.
In addition to the killer’s journal, The Star obtained an FBI memo regarding “legacy tokens” that was sent to MNPD in May 2023, around the time Metro Nashville was sued in order to compel the release of the manifesto.
The FBI memo “strongly” advised MNPD against releasing “legacy tokens,” which an FBI document defines as “a communication prepared by the offender to claim credit for the attack and articulate the motives underlying the shooting.” It also raised the precedent for destruction of such items, citing portions of the video tapes left by the perpetrators of the Columbine High School attack that were destroyed.
Despite the FBI memo advising against the release of legacy tokens, the Biden-Harris DOJ in September published a letter written by Ryan Wesley Routh, who allegedly attempted to assassinate Trump earlier this year.
Watch Patel’s full December 2023 interview with Beck:
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
