Exclusive: FBI Director Kash Patel Interview

TOP LINE:

On Monday 11/24, we sat down with FBI Director Kash Patel for an exclusive interview.

No topic was off limits.

We are releasing the full interview and the full transcript.

If you pull quotes, please review the video as well.

NOTE: We did not ask Director Patel about the dismissal of the James Comey indictment because the news broke after our interview concluded.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Director Patel, thank you for speaking with Straight to the Point. When you arrived here at FBI headquarters nine months ago, what did you find?

FBI DIRECTOR KASH PATEL

Catherine? It's great to be with you. Thanks for coming here to FBI headquarters and sitting down with us. When I first got to the bureau, I knew I would find one thing for sure and that is a dedicated workforce to the mission. I also knew I would find things that need to be fixed and changed and addressed in terms of how we prosecute and investigate cases in terms of how we treat the workforce and how we care for them. This building, for instance, our infrastructure systems, all these things that a place like the FBI needs to be functional, have to be serviced, and I knew I would find a lot of those matters in disarray unfortunately because of years of neglect.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

What did you consider your most important change so far?

KASH PATEL

The most important change for me is the focus that we put on moving this mission to the field and empowering our sacs and our leaders in the field. That's why when we first got here, we immediately set out to redeploy over a thousand agents into the field from Washington DC's National Capital Region. I found out that our 36,000, 37,000 person strong workforce in the NCR, the National Capital region had almost a third of the workforce, but most of the crimes were being committed outside of the NCR. So we moved them out and I can proudly report today that we have successfully moved out nearly the entirety of the thousand and we'll finish that in January. So every field office in the country is getting a plus up of agents and they're going to be followed by Intel analysts and support staff and we're empowering our sacs, our field leaders to do the work in the field.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Multiple lawsuits have been filed alleging that there were terminations here at the FBI and they were politically motivated. Were the FBI terminations politically motivated?

KASH PATEL

No. And since those are all ongoing matters, I will say this definitively, if you were terminated as a result of any matters during my tenure at the FBI, it was done because there was just cause to do so. And we'll speak to that just cause through our pleadings.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

One of the big cases you inherited is the attempted assassination of President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. What are the findings?

KASH PATEL

So as you know Catherine, we've been briefing the president constantly on this matter and he's very satisfied with it and I understand the public's desire for more and more information, but when we came in, our job was to both treat the president as the president of the United States and a victim and remind the American public that there were three other victims and tragically one person even lost his life. So there are certain victims' rights that we have to honor, but what we did and what we presented and what we released is the full findings that we are able to publicize to the world that definitively answer questions regarding Butler. We seized dozens and dozens of devices. We exploited and got into every single one of those devices. We got onto all the online platforms and social media sites of the assailant of crooks and we did a re canvassing just to double down since we got in and inherited this case and we gave out information to Congress and the public that the prior administration refuse to do.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Just to be clear, did Thomas Crooks act alone?

KASH PATEL

Yes, based on the evidence that we have, that is the conclusive finding of the matter.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Is there evidence of foreign involvement?

KASH PATEL

As we indicated in our public disclosures, Thomas Crooks had some online platforms where he engaged through email with a couple of individuals overseas and we chased those down literally to the end and basically it was just that online email accounts overseas without any substantive communications.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

What was Thomas Crook's motive?

KASH PATEL

He as has been publicized, had a basically hateful relationship with the United States government, talked disparagingly about both political parties to include President Trump and talked about the need to take matters into his own hands and unfortunately that's what he did.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Under Director Ray, were there missed opportunities to stop Thomas Crooks?

KASH PATEL

That's a question you'll have to ask him. Part of what we are doing is providing the information to the American public and most importantly congress to get to the American public so they can answer those questions. We weren't there when it happened, we weren't responsible for the investigation. We don't know what happened and why those decisions were made, but we are doing what we can to clean it up.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

What explains the discrepancies and confusion over crook's online activity?

KASH PATEL

Look, I think Catherine, you know this in media everyone's entitled to their opinion and everyone's entitled to put out whatever they want to put out, but what we the FB are not entitled to do is trample over your first amendment rights. And so while people are asking why the prior administration didn't find Thomas crooks earlier, and it's a valid question by the way, one you can ask the prior administration, we weren't here but two, this FBI or any FBI doesn't have the ability to go out and monitor nor should it people who are on YouTube or on social media platforms or on email platforms and we have to balance both the criminality if there is such versus the First Amendment protections which we must adhere to.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

You mentioned earlier that you've been briefing President Trump. Is President Trump's satisfied by the findings?

KASH PATEL

Yes.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

No more questions.

KASH PATEL

No.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Is the Thomas Crooks case a closed case?

KASH PATEL

How we treat cases like this of such great public importance is we put 'em in a pending slash inactive status so if there's new information that comes in, we can receive it and react to it and we don't want to foreclose that possibility.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Democratic lawmakers released a video calling on military personnel to defy illegal orders. President Trump weighed in and called it a seditious behavior. When you saw this went through your head,

KASH PATEL

What goes through my head is the same thing that goes through my head. In any case, is there a lawful predicate to open up an inquiry and investigation or is there not And that decision will be made by the career agents and analysts here at the FBI.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Is the FBI getting involved

KASH PATEL

Based on the fact that is an ongoing matter, there's not much I can say.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Okay. I want to talk about the Russia collusion cases, former FBI director Comey is pushing hard to get his case dismissed. Are you confident that the US interim US attorney Lindsey Halligan can secure a conviction?

KASH PATEL

I can't comment on the finality of the case since it's pending and the allegations are before a court for Mr. Comey but what I can tell you is this, this Department of Justice under the Attorney General and US attorney Lindsey Halligan, have been following the facts and the law and making a presentment based solely on that and the presentation of evidence that was divulged just recently in the pleadings shows the world the substantive information that we have collected when bringing this case and acting on the facts in then law.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Respecting that there are ongoing investigations based on your recent congressional testimony is the FBI pursuing a broader conspiracy that was allegedly designed to undermine President Trump.

KASH PATEL

We have multiple ongoing matters surrounding that. It's no secret we can discuss this limitedly because we have divulged it to Congress because we were working with our partners in oversight on Congress who have requested of volumous amount of information and what I want the American public to know is the baseline commitment we have to Congressional oversight Director Combin has three plus years turned over 3000 pages of documents to Congress Director Ray and his nearly seven years turned over 13,000 pages to Congress us this FBI in nine months we're about to turn over our 40th thousand pages of documents to Congress. Al righty.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

To be clear, are you building a larger conspiracy case?

KASH PATEL

We are going to continue to follow the facts and the law and we have multiple teams working on these matters like any other case and they will decide what to present and what not to present

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Are the former DNI James Clapper and the former CIA director John Brennan and others in the clear?

KASH PATEL

Well the FBI is not in the business of exonerating people. This FBI will be in the business of following the facts in the law and as you've noted and you followed greatly with our engagement with Congress, a number of these individuals including the ones you've just listed are being examined and our scope of that will continue until we reach a finality of a conclusion.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Evidence filed in the Comey criminal case has revealed that earlier this year at FBI headquarters, five burn bags were discovered containing sensitive and classified information about the Trump investigations. Have you reviewed the burn bag materials?

KASH PATEL

So this is a great example of when we first got here, we said we would do our speaking of our FBI work through our pleadings and case file system. This is exactly what we've done in the Comey case. We've presented, everybody's been talking about these burn bags and all this evidence that was found and there are questions and there should be questions on why did this room exist with all these burn bags in the first

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Place. Lemme ask you, when you learned about the discovery of the five burn bags here at FDI headquarters, what went through your head

KASH PATEL

Shock? Unbelievable shock that not just one director and as leadership team but multiple would have information that's supposed to be secured. Some of it's classified but I mean secured for purposes of record keeping purposes to keep up with federal statutory requirements because that's what we're supposed to be doing and instead they were deposited in bags listed for destruction. So that was very disturbing. Just that in and of itself, putting aside whatever was in there,

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

The burn bags were found in room 95 82. That's a secure facility. I'm told by former agents that it would have some sort of access system or a key card system. Does FBI leadership have a good idea who put the burn bags in that room?

KASH PATEL

We do.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

You know for sure or you have a good universe of suspects, you know who put the burn bags there. Okay. What was the intent of the person who put the burn bags in room 95 82? Was it to preserve them to be discovered later or to make sure they were destroyed?

KASH PATEL

Well those are the questions we are answering for the public and for this investigation because not only are we not in the business of not exonerating people, but we're in the business of taking our investigative findings and working with Congress to say, look, even though we did not or did reach a legal conclusion on the matter, this is of such public importance in terms of the weaponization of government that happened who were people like President Trump were targeted and including myself and more senators that we just revealed thanks to this FBI's work in uncovering not just the burn bag but other material related to arctic frost. What we want to do is find a public forum to display that information and we believe that until our investigations conclude we will be limited in what we can produce.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

It sounds to me like the answer to that question.

KASH PATEL

I do.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

That's what I thought. Okay. A highly classified CIA referral containing intelligence about the 2016 presidential election was also discovered here at FBI headquarters in a storage closet adjacent to the FBI director's office. How many FBI personnel had access to that storage closet?

KASH PATEL

That's part of this ongoing investigation and because we are working through that, I don't want to disclose the number of folks or even who had access to it because that goes to your other question on who put it there and why did they put it there and were there any instructions associated with them depositing that material in these rooms?

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

To be clear, this CIA intelligence referral, the

KASH PATEL

ICA, right?

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Yes. Well not the ICA. This CIA intelligence referral in 2016.

KASH PATEL

Oh, the CIOL? Yes. Gotcha.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Was that referral about intelligence concerning an alleged Clinton plan to tie President Trump to Russia?

KASH PATEL

I believe, I think the document you're referring to is one still classified so hard for me to comment on, but two, it's also part of this ongoing investigation.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Okay. Okay. Am I correct based on my reporting? It is a very, very small universe of individuals who had access to that storage closet.

KASH PATEL

Very small.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Is it in fact only one?

KASH PATEL

It's very small.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Okay. On the Epstein files, the Epstein Files Transparency Act has a very tight deadline, 30 days to produce unclassified records. Will the FBI meet the 30 day deadline?

KASH PATEL

Well we are working with our partners at the Department of Justice to produce as we've always committed to producing what we can lawfully legally produce and we will continue to meet those metrics reminding the public that there are court orders in place, protective orders and orders to seal in place that legally prohibit the disclosure of information related to any investigation when there's a court order of that fashion. So we're working with DOJ to say if we can produce anything more

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

As FBI director, will you commit to as few blacked out sections or redactions as possible?

KASH PATEL

We always do. We have in our productions to Congress, which have been historic to this year and we'll treat every matter in the same fashion while also upholding always victim's rights, victim's rights. In any case, whether it's President Trump's case, this case or any case, the victim's rights statutes are preeminent and we'll protect those victims at all costs.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

President Trump told your boss, attorney General Pam Bondy to look into the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and Democrats including former President Bill Clinton. Is the probe limited to Democrats or will you follow the facts wherever they lead?

KASH PATEL

We'll just follow the facts. It's pretty simple. For this FBI,

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

This administration campaigned on releasing the Epstein files. What do you say to Americans who are skeptical that there will be actual justice under a Trump administration?

KASH PATEL

Look at the work of this FBI to date. In the nine months that I've been this job, we've arrested 30,000 people, 25,000 of which have been violent felons. That is double double increase from year to date from the same time period last year. We have taken on our priorities and counter espionage work to an increase of 35% more arrests year to date alone. On the drug front we've seized 1900 kilograms of fentanyl. That is a 35% increase from year to date last year. That's just the work of this FBI. We found 5,400 and identified 5,400 children missing children. That is a 17% increase from this time, same time period last year. These are just a few examples of how committed we are to working the criminal cases for the American people so everyone gets treated the same.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

So more charges are possible. The Epstein in the Epstein case

KASH PATEL

Based on the new referral, we'll take a look at that and see what evidence comes, but there's an important distinction. The information that the government possesses versus the information that the Epstein estate possesses, those are two separate boxes of information and the Epstein estate has not been willing to share information with the US government. And so even though we've requested them to do so,

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Okay, I want to talk about China. After a recent visit to China, the Chinese communist government agreed to tighten control or restrict precursor chemicals used to produce fentanyl. Take us inside those negotiations. What was the moment when you knew you had a deal?

KASH PATEL

So this is one of President Trump's biggest priorities and when he came in and I came into this seat, he said, we have got to crush violent crime and defend the homeland. And part of doing that is countermanding the wildly, wildly unfortunately successful narco trafficking campaign against America. And a big piece of that is fentanyl as we just discussed, which is killing far too many Americans by the tens of thousands. And so on day one, we made it a priority to engage with our Chinese counterparts because the fentanyl precursors are sold and produced in mainland China. And thanks to President, president Trump's engagements with President Xi and his historic engagement with President Xi we and under this FBI set out on admission to go to China and meet with my counterpart at the Ministry of Public Security and literally were welcomed into China and Beijing for the first time in a decade for an FBI director with a specific list of precursors that's the ingredients that are used to make fentanyl and a separate list of chemicals that are used to augment the production of fentanyl. And immediately at that table I knew based on President Trump's conversation with Xi Jinping and my current conversations with my counterpart that we had struck an agreement to shut it off when we sat down and they've adhered to it.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

How quickly will you know if China is breaking the deal?

KASH PATEL

We will be able to glean the impact of the deal, not immediately, but in the very near future because

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

So months maybe

KASH PATEL

I would say a couple of months and here's how we will be able to tell. One, we always have intelligence reporting and we're always monitoring those committing narco trafficking. The drug trafficking organizations who have rightly designated as foreign terrorist organizations down in Mexico. We'll look into the intelligence and see are there reflections, is there chatter about can they make fentanyl? Do they have the precursors? Are they going to find artificial substitutes to those artificial precursors themselves? Those would be immediate ways for us to find out and ultimately we'll just know from the amount of fentanyl we're seizing and seeing come across the border and into America and how much is being sold on the streets. And so that'll take a couple of months.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Have the consequences of cheating on the deal been communicated to China?

KASH PATEL

I think that is a higher level decision point that the President and Secretary Rubio are engaging on. There's the matter of tariffs, but we and the FB are just playing our part under that big deal to make sure fentanyl's off and I think and believe that the Chinese will keep to their commitment on this because of President Trump's leadership.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

On the Charlie Kirk assassination investigation, you testified recently that more than 20 people were on the discord chat related to the suspect Tyler Robinson. Have you spoken to those people? Is it now a larger universe of 20 people?

KASH PATEL

Well, so with the Charlie case, it's a matter that is being led by the state authorities in Utah because it is a homicide investigation that is being prosecuted by the state. So us as the FBI are partners and part of that prosecution team. We're not the lead and it's very much ongoing, so there is a lot of legal process being doled out and we are committed to issuing every piece of legal process and search warrant that we can to talk to absolutely everyone and anyone who had anything to do with the assassination of my friend. And we're going to continue to do that and also honor the prosecutor's wishes and how we do that and what we release publicly

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Respecting that it is an ongoing investigation. Is there any evidence of foreign involvement? Is there any evidence that Tyler Robinson had help?

KASH PATEL

Again, that will be spoken through by the prosecutors. If I as the FBA director commented on that right now in any way, shape or form that would hurt their case. The worst thing that can happen is the individual who's charged and has his day in court down the road is if we the FBI or another law enforcement agency improperly commented on evidence and gave the defense an unfair advantage. During the trial

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

In a recent cable news interview with Fox, you said to stay tuned about the January 6th pipe bomber case. Are there new developments we can discuss?

KASH PATEL

There are new developments. Can we discuss them? Not at this time, but I think you'll be hearing from us soon on it.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Are you closer to making an arrest?

KASH PATEL

When we took over the FBI, we knew there was a renewed interest in a lot of cases of great public importance and of course this one where it was alleged that someone went to the United States Capitol grounds and planted a bomb to possibly blow up. Then Vice President Kamala Harris or other Republicans and other Democrats on Capitol Hill was one. We felt important enough to redouble our investigative tactics and that's what we've done and like we did in the Comey case when we made presentations in court, when the American public finds out the presentations we will be making, if we get to a judicial decision, then they will see how much was missed in this case and what we have done. And I hope the American public will realize our commitment to putting out as much information as we can when we can on cases of great public importance.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

There's been a lot of media reporting about the pipe bomb case recently. Have there been any significant breakthroughs for the FBI in recent days?

KASH PATEL

Yes,

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Of course. I'd like to have a little bit more, but can you share anymore? Do you expect that there will be a charge before the end of the year?

KASH PATEL

My job is to protect the integrity of the investigation and I know that causes a lot of backlash from some sectors of the online community, but I'd rather speak through our casework in public and be able to assure the American public that we are delivering actual accountability than just sit here and tell you. I think we're going to get 'em.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

The military has conducted at least 21 strikes on alleged drug varying boats since September is their government data that shows these strikes are reducing the flow of illegal drugs to the United States.

KASH PATEL

Without question, president Trump's commitment, his work with the Department of War and the intelligence community and the FBI on this matter has been of premium importance as we talked about the narco trafficking. We are seeing reflections in our intelligence already without getting into the details of the drug trafficking organizations trying to find new routes, scared that they might get and rightfully show blown up. And so there has been an immediate impact and I think this is a decisive decision that President Trump rightly made.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Are you confident there's a direct link between Venezuela and the flow of fentanyl to the United States?

KASH PATEL

There is a direct link between Venezuela and a lot of transshipment in terms of what is and isn't being transship through Venezuela. A lot of that information is classified, so I can't get into the details of it, but I think this administration has correctly pointed out the amount of overland and over air transshipment routes and oversee and undersea trans shipment routes coming and stemming from Venezuela.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Let's talk about the jet you flew on a Department of Justice jet to visit your girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, performing at an event at State College. Were any rules broken?

KASH PATEL

No, and I'm shocked that people would, well, I guess I'm not shocked anymore. This FBI under my leadership changed the FBI plane use requirements so that we could save the taxpayer money. I am the only director to ever mandate the use of government airfields. The prior directors utilize airfields like Reagan National to the tune of $4 million for takeoffs and landings. And so I think this is another distraction from the work that we are doing here at the FBI and the fact that members of Congress are up in arms about it. Why don't we ask them how often they went home during the government shutdown and how much money they spent going home and who they traveled with and how many delegations they had.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Is there a brief update on the status of the new FBI headquarters?

KASH PATEL

There is a great update. You're here in the old one, which we can confidently say is the old one. We're moving to the Ronald Reagan building, which is just basically across the street. It is a project that people have been trying to accomplish since 2000 and under President Trump's leadership, he saw that this building was unsafe for the workforce. And if you guys walk around with your camera crew, you'll literally see netting here that is holding up falling pieces of cement so it doesn't hit employees on the head. This workforce deserves a high, high-tech upgraded version of a headquarters building. And the great part is prior administrations wanted to spend nearly 5 billion on building a new building that wouldn't be completed until 2036. We are taking already appropriated funds in the maintenance of just this building and utilizing instead of the maintenance of this building to move over into Reagan and upgrade it. And we will save over three and a half billion dollars by doing so. We've already secured and moved into one of the floors over there and now we have some security assessment work going on. And I hope by the end of next year we'll have a large chunk of our workforce there and we'll also consolidate a lot of the wasteful spending on leases in other government properties that the FBI uses in the NCR and come under one place.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Final question, director Patel, I first reported on you over a decade ago when you were a senior staffer on the House Intelligence Committee and 20 15 20 16 the Russia collusion allegations. I since left Fox went to CBS, I'm now working as an independent journalist. If you'd asked me a decade ago, I would not have imagined that we would be sitting right here today. Director, you could have given this wide ranging interview to any major corporate outlet. Why choose independent journalism?

KASH PATEL

I'm glad you said that because your work speaks for itself and the work that I did as a staffer in Russiagate, the work that you did to educate the world on the ultimate weaponization of government during Russiagate and the abuse and the unlawful practices before Secret Court to surveil a political opponent based on political garbage and the lies the FBI presented that court, remember what they said about us a decade ago.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Well, that's going to have to be for another interview. But why give the interview to an independent journalist?

KASH PATEL

Because you were right to put out that information and I was right to investigate it and put out the facts. And the reason I gave you this interview is because you're committed to putting out the facts and none of the hyperbole, and you've done that your entire career.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE

Well thank you Director Patel. We appreciate the time here on Straight to the Point.

KASH PATEL

Thanks so much Catherine.