(NewsNation) — FBI Director Kash Patel declined an interview with Bill O’Reilly to discuss and possibly clear the air about the Jeffrey Epstein controversy, the political commentator told “CUOMO” on Wednesday.

“He turned me down, which is fairly shocking. Over the years, I’ve had a respectful relationship with him,” O’Reilly said. “He clearly didn’t want to come up against me. He did some softball interviews with other people he knew he could handle.”

Patel, who was a national security adviser in President Trump’s first term, was known for airing conspiracy theories about the 2019 jailhouse death of Jeffrey Epstein before becoming Trump’s FBI director early this year.

In July, the FBI and Department of Justice issued a memo saying Epstein, a jet-setting sex trafficker of underage girls,

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