This past weekend on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, FBI director Kash Patel and his deputy, Dan Bongino, made a stunning declaration: Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide. That was it. Case closed. Bongino even said he’s “seen the file,” as if that alone should convince the American people to move on.
But that’s not how this works.
I couldn’t tell if I was watching an interview or a hostage video.
The public doesn’t owe Patel and Bongino blind trust, especially not on a matter this explosive. In fact, their appearance on Bartiromo’s show torpedoed their credibility.
Epstein wasn’t just another inmate. He was a nexus of corruption, intelligence, and elite abuse — someone whose connections spanned elites, presidents, royalty, billionaires, and spies. His death was either one of the most spectacular security failures in modern history — or something far darker. And no number of official titles or vague references to secret documents should shut down public scrutiny.
Americans have good reason to be suspicious. Epstein’s death was a hall of mirrors from the start. There weren’t just a few oddities; there was an avalanche of contradictions and red flags. Yet Bongino and Patel simply want you to trust what they say their eyes saw.
Nope. Sorry.
Despite all this, the DOJ closed the case quietly and without holding anyone truly accountable.
This isn’t a tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory. It’s a pattern of irregularities so staggering that any reasonable observer would demand real answers.
This isn’t even the first time the BOP (ironically, the same director) has declared a clear-cut murder a “suicide.” In 1995, Kenneth Michael Trentadue was found dead in his federal prison cell in Oklahoma. The government claimed that it was a suicide. His family was told it was an open-and-shut case. But when they saw the body, it was clear: Trentadue had been beaten to death. Photos showed extensive bruising, open wounds, and facial trauma. The autopsy didn’t match the story. A cover-up was obvious.
The director of the Bureau of Prisons at that time? Kathleen Hawk Sawyer, appointed by then–attorney general William Barr in 1992. She should have been held accountable then. But instead, she re-entered the scene in August 2019 — reappointed by Barr again just nine days after Epstein died.
That’s not coincidence. That’s choreography.
So when Kash Patel and Dan Bongino go on national TV and expect Americans to take their word for it — that Epstein killed himself because “the file” says so — they're not just asking for trust. They're demanding silence. In doing so, they've crossed a line.
Patel and Bongino once built reputations as truth-tellers, exposing corruption inside federal agencies. But now they stand on the side of opacity and deference to power. Instead of providing transparency, they’re waving it off. Instead of advocating for full accountability, they’re sealing the vault.
It’s a self-inflicted credibility collapse.
Trust in government institutions is at an all-time low, and for good reasons. The Epstein case may be the single greatest example in a generation of how the elite are protected at all costs. If two of the most visible law enforcement figures in the country are now helping to obscure that truth, the public has every right to be outraged.
“Trust us, we’ve seen the file” is not justice. It’s not transparency. It’s a message to the American people: Don’t ask questions.
Todd Baumann is the director of operations for Special Guests Publicity, www.specialguests.com.
Image: Kash Patel. Credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.