Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy pressed FBI Director Kash Patel on Tuesday to continue the release of files in the Jeffrey Epstein case, specifically information about who other than Epstein, if anyone, was on the receiving end of girls and women being sex trafficked.

“The issue’s not gonna go away,” said Kennedy during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s FBI oversight hearing, where Patel was testifying. “I think you’re gonna have to do more to satisfy the American people’s understandable curiosity in that regard.”

Kennedy’s comments were notable as the Trump administration battles complaints about the Justice Department’s slow, piecemeal approach to turning over materials related to the late, convicted sex offender — including from fellow Republicans.

Patel said he agreed with Kennedy’s assessment — a stark contrast with President Donald Trump’s repeated comments that the obsession with the Epstein case was nothing more than a “hoax.”

“I am not saying that others were not trafficked and others were not involved,” Patel said. “The information we are releasing now is historic and it is also to the maximum capacity that the law allows.”

Patel during his testimony has repeatedly pinned blame on Alex Acosta, Trump’s first-term Labor secretary, as a reason for the government’s blind spots on Epstein.

Acosta, who oversaw the Justice Department’s early 2000s prosecution of Epstein, struck a plea deal with Epstein that included a non-prosecution agreement for other potential crimes. That deal, Patel said repeatedly, amounted to a “get-out-of-jail-free” card that limited the federal government’s ability to pursue certain investigative threads.

Patel also said the absence of evidence that Epstein trafficked minors to other people may be a function of those limitations. And he suggested the FBI’s decision not to release some records to the public may also be tied up because of that earlier arrangement.

Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) said Tuesday he doesn’t intend to run for president in 2028 or 2032 in an interview with Blue Light News’s Jonathan Martin.

“Where we are in our life, we have six daughters, I’m 60 years old, had a great private sector career,” McCormick said at Blue Light News’s AI & Tech Summit in Washington. “So this was the the penultimate chapter, the ability to make a difference.”

McCormick, who first ran for then-outgoing Sen. Pat Toomey’s seat in 2022, said losing the GOP primary that year to Dr. Mehmet Oz by less than 1,000 votes was “excruciatingly hard” but ultimately made him a stronger candidate. He then narrowly defeated then-Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) in 2024.

Prior to his first Senate run, McCormick — a military veteran who served in the George W. Bush administration — led Bridgewater Associates, one of the largest hedge funds in the world.

“I look back at my first campaign and some of the things, some of the the media hits, and I cringe,” he said. “I look at my second campaign and I’m like, ‘OK, that’s a guy who knows why he’s doing it, knows what he’s trying to get done.’ And so it was a blessing. I didn’t think so at the time, it was a blessing.”

The GOP senator has been an ally of President Donald Trump since he joined Congress earlier this year.

McCormick, who is married to former deputy national security adviser Dina Powell, said that his children were opposed to both his 2022 and 2024 Senate bids but that he ultimately considers it “a privilege” to be serving in Congress.

Embattled FBI director Kash Patel defended his leadership of the nation’s top law enforcement agency in opening remarks Tuesday morning before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“I’m honored to be the ninth director of the FBI — I’m not going anywhere,” he told lawmakers. “If you want to criticize my 16 years of service, please bring it on.”

It could set the tone for the Judiciary panel’s annual oversight hearing of the FBI, which comes amid increased scrutiny of Patel in the aftermath of last week’s assassination of conservative political commentator Charlie Kirk.

In the wake of the killing, Patel posted on social media that the government had a suspect in custody — only to post shortly thereafter that the suspect, who was not the killer, had been released. Patel defended the bureau’s handling of the investigation in his opening statement, while Sen. Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley opened the proceedings by noting the FBI director would have to answer for the department’s handling of the situation.

Patel, in his remarks, also criticized the Justice Department’s handling of the sex crimes case against Jeffrey Epstein in the George W. Bush administration, including calling out former U.S. attorney Alex Acosta, who oversaw Epstein’s controversial plea deal. Acosta later served as Labor Secretary in the first Trump administration but resigned in the midst of criticism of his handling of the Epstein deal. He is scheduled to be interviewed by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Friday as part of its Epstein probe.

In his own opening statement, Sen. Dick Durbin, the committee’s top Democrat, previewed what questions could look like from his side of the aisle: He took aim at the recent firings at the FBI, Patel’s background as a Trump loyalist and the current administration’s approach to the Epstein case.

Anticipating that the recent surge in political violence will be a theme at the Tuesday hearing, Durbin also argued that both sides bore a responsibility for turning down the temperature in partisan rhetoric: Democrats were not to blame for Kirk’s assassination, he said, nor were Republicans responsible for the murder of Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman back in June.

Senators will each be allotted ten minutes to question Patel, who is appearing before lawmakers on Capitol Hill for the first time since his confirmation. He’ll testify Wednesday in front of the House Judiciary Committee for its own FBI oversight hearing.