Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, said a “big house cleaning” appears to be needed at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as the bureau continues to stall on the release of much-anticipated documents relating to the Covenant School shooting and the late billionaire and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Noting how FBI Director Kash Patel was sworn into the role on February 21, which was nearly three weeks ago, Pappert said the FBI’s silence surrounding The Star’s request for all 1,000 handwritten pages left by Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale to be released may be a sign that the bureau continues to employ lower level individuals aligned with the ideology of keeping such documents under wraps.
Pappert pointed to the recent report of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) instructing its employees to destroy documents as the Trump administration is actively working to shut down the agency.
“Look at what we learned about USAID just yesterday, where it came out that a memo went out through the agency from somebody called an executive assistant secretary or something like that, saying, we’re going to have an agency-wide burn day. We’re going to shred every document and those we can’t fit in a paper shredder, we’re going to put into burn bags and destroy,” Pappert explained on Wednesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
“We have an USAID, which has been made defunct… that’s still allegedly managing to undermine the Trump administration. So if this is happening in an obscure state department agency like USAID, you can only imagine what’s happening at the FBI,” Pappert added.
Pappert said he would advise Patel or U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi that the release of materials relating to the Covenant School killer would be a “very simple way” to rebound following the botched release over the Epstein files last month.
“I think the FBI and the Department of Justice have been the two weak spots of an otherwise almost flawless administration when it comes to the release of documents,” Pappert said.
“I would advise Cash Patel, Pam Bondi…This would be a very easy and very simple way to win a lot of support back over this Epstein controversy. This is something that is not going to be hard to find and once you release it, people are going to realize your transparency goals are real,” Pappert added.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “FBI Agent” by FBI and “FBI HQ” is by Randall Myers CC2.0.
