Practically every week after FBI Director Kash Patel’s roughly five-hour testimony earlier than the Home Judiciary Committee with regard to his dealing with of the Jeffrey Epstein recordsdata, a word he wrote to himself is elevating eyebrows on-line.
Patel’s handwritten phrases are clearly legible in a photograph taken by Getty Pictures photographer Win McNamee.
“Good fight with Swalwell. Hold the line,” the word, written in blue ink on Patel’s official stationery, reads. “Brush off their attacks. Rise above the next line of partisan attacks.”
Win McNamee by way of Getty Pictures
Journalist Aaron Rupar posted the picture to his X account Friday, the place it has since been seen greater than 5.3 million instances and drawn a plethora of amusing responses.
“Lmfao he’s writing words of affirmation to himself,” one particular person wrote.
Others blasted Patel as “an odd, unqualified man” who resembled “a kid in school who’s just trying to pass his next calculus exam.”
“This reads like the pep talk I give myself before every holiday with my family,” one other particular person wrote.
Patel confronted two days of combative hearings in each chambers of Congress final week, throughout which he was additionally questioned about his loyalty to President Donald Trump and the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
Win McNamee by way of Getty Pictures
He most notably sparred with lawmakers calling for solutions about unreleased paperwork within the investigation into Epstein, the disgraced financier who died by suicide in 2019 whereas awaiting trial on prices of intercourse trafficking underage women.
At one level, Patel dodged California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell’s questions in regards to the Trump administration’s lack of transparency over the Epstein recordsdata by reciting his ABCs and, later, claimed there’s “no credible information” that Epstein trafficked younger girls to anybody however himself.
He additionally claimed to be unaware of mass shooter Dylann Roof, who killed 9 Black folks at a Charleston, South Carolina, church in 2015.
