Kash Patel Spars on the Hill, New Crooks Files, Nick Reiner Won't Face Death Penalty: AM Update 9/16

0:00Hey, Chicagoland! The Wayfair store is in your neighborhood at Edens Plaza in Wilmette. Finally, you can feel the fabric, sit on the sectionals, and even open the refrigerators. Plus, our in-store designers will help you bring it all together with free one-on-one design support for any project on any budget. Yep, we said free. Oh, and did we mention the cafe? So what are you waiting for? Come see all that's in store. Visit the Wayfair store today at Edens Plaza in Wilmette. Wayfair, every style, every home Good morning, everyone. I'm Megan Kelly. It's Wednesday, September 16th, 2026, and this is your AM Update.

0:39By the way, I want to know how your wealth increased 4 ,000 % since you became United States Senator. An FBI oversight hearing erupting into insults, accusations, and downright bizarre exchanges as Director Cash Patel battles fierce critics on Capitol Hill. A possible sighting of would-be Trump assassin Thomas Crooks with two unidentified men weeks before the assassination attempt. Among the new details emerging from the latest release of FBI files on the Trump shooter. Every Democrat senator suddenly races to a microphone to talk about AI after being eerily silent for months and months and months.

1:17Attorney General Todd Blanche facing the White House press corps weighing in on the escalating AI battle and then some. and the death penalty off the table for Rob Reiner's son, Nick Reiner. All that and more coming up in just a moment on your AM update.

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2:21Head to CozyEarth.com and use my code MEGANAM for up to 20 % off home and sleepwear. That's code MEGANAM for up to 20 % off on home and sleepwear. And if you see a post-purchase survey, please be sure to mention that you heard about Cozy Earth right here. FBI Director Cash Patel facing nearly five hours of grilling on Capitol Hill yesterday as a routine Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing erupted into a series of sometimes personal and at times downright bizarre confrontations. Lawmakers from both parties pressing Patel over everything from controversial firings and election monitoring to the Bureau's newly released hiring standards.

3:05Director Patel opening on offense, listing out a series of FBI accomplishments under his leadership. The FBI has arrested 54 ,000 violent criminals. That's up 90 % from the 18-month-year period prior to that. 31 ,000 violent gang members have been arrested by the FBI. We've removed, the FBI has removed 3 ,258 kilograms of fentanyl. That's enough to kill a quarter billion Americans. We have located, found and identified 11 ,081 child victims. That is up 21%. That is making America safe. We have arrested 5 ,072 child predators and human traffickers. That's up 13 percent. This FBI have arrested 4 ,260 foreign terrorist organization-related affiliates.

4:00That's up 38 percent, including the fact that this FBI has stopped 1 ,100 criminal perpetrators from committing terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. The victory lap soon giving way to one of the hearing's strangest disputes. CBS News reporting the FBI issued new guidance in June removing the automatic disqualification of some applicants who previously stole from an employer, paid for sex, or engaged in bestiality or animal cruelty before turning 18. Ranking Democrat Dick Durbin arguing the Bureau had lowered its standards while Director Patel contended the change had been badly mischaracterized. Thank you for bringing this up so we can get to the truth of the matter.

4:48We did not want to punish victims of bestiality, victims who were trafficked. We did not want to make it an automatic disqualification for the FBI to consider you if you are a victim of these awful, heinous acts. They still have to go to the same rigorous standards and application process. We are not going to target victims and prevent them from serving in their capacity to serve this country who may be most motivated to serve our FBI workforce. He's no longer protecting those who've been charged with PCL. He's protecting those who are victims. Just turned it upside down. No, you didn't. You actually did because you lied.

5:23Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana trying to pin down precisely who the revised policy was intended to protect. Tell me what it said before. It automatically disqualified any individual who participated on either side of it. Obviously, we are never going to hire the criminals. The bestiality? Yes. So you disqualified the animal? Well, I don't think we have great canines, but we're not going to disqualify. I understand. I'm trying to understand why you did this. If Joe if Joe participated in bestiality, not as the animal, but as the human. Don't you think he ought to be qualified, disqualified?

6:07If he voluntarily did it, sure. But if he was trafficked into it. Okay, how do you involuntarily do it? In a lot of these cases, when human traffickers, who are some of the worst individuals on planet Earth, they don't just traffic you for prostitution, they traffic you for degrading acts of all kind, and they force you into that type of conduct. And some of these individuals would go on to be law enforcement officers who qualified to be law enforcement officers and later applied to the FBI. Director Patel saying he initially reacted to the proposal much as Kennedy did before bureau officials showed him actual cases involving trafficking victims who later applied to the FBI.

6:44The revised policy allowing those applicants to receive individual consideration, with Patel insisting anyone who voluntarily committed the act would still be rejected and prosecuted. Two months before the midterm elections, the questioning then shifting to what role the FBI intends to play on Election Day. Democrat Senator Peter Welsh of Vermont, pointing to comments from Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate John James, who claimed Patel personally assured him that the bureau would have a presence in both western and southeastern Michigan, the question triggering one of the hearing's most explosive exchanges.

7:21We have election crisis coordinators manned at all 56 field offices. Election integrity is of paramount importance this fbi is not going to shy away from that effort and if you want to continue lying about the men and women of the fbi so you can have your four second campanette go ahead do you pledge that you will not in any way interfere in the will of the american people when they go to the polls in november i pledge unequivocally that i will not participate in your charade of lies then why are you uh being such a panderer to president trump who's still claiming that he won the 2020 election.

8:02What I believe in is the rule of law. What I will always believe in is executing the rule of law. The rule of law is the president saying in advance that he loses an election. Are you done with your campaign ad? By the way, it's been rigged. I want to know how your wealth increased 4 ,000 percent since you became a United States senator. The temperature climbing even higher during Democrat Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey's turn. Once Mr. Booker's allotted time expired, Republican Chairman Chuck Grassley trying unsuccessfully to move the hearing along as Booker and Patel continued trading insults.

8:34I'm going to hold this man accountable for as long as he's in his job until he gets fired, which he probably will because he's incompetent at his job and continues to do things that merit his removal. Yes, shame on you, sir. Director Patel, were you done? By the way, violent crime arrests by the FBI in New Jersey are up 75 % on top of the historic results we've already delivered for the American people. Yeah, thanks to the state police and local police officers. Irrespective of the lies that he continues to tell. Sir, nothing I have said here is a lie. You said your time's up. Are you done or not?

9:02No, are you done or not, sir? You want to answer my questions? If you want to answer my questions, go to the next person. This is ridiculous. What a mockery you are. You are the biggest mockery in the United States Senate, and you're sitting next to the ship. Yeah, well, eight million people in New Jersey don't think so. At least I didn't get my job the way you got your job, sir. Are you going to interfere with Senator Graham asking her questions, too? I certainly will not. Two, as well? I certainly will not. Are you done now? Are you ready to shut up? I am done, sir. More than two years after Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on President Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a new release of FBI records revealing previously undisclosed details about the gunman's contacts and the early investigation.

9:45The FBI publishing its eighth batch of files on Crooks, including interview summaries, evidence records, and internal communications collected after the July 2024 assassination attempt. Journalist Tom Elliott reviewing the files, highlighting several encounters that he argues complicate the familiar portrait of Crooks as a loner who did virtually everything by himself. The most notable involving a gun store roughly 120 miles from Crooks' home. According to an FBI interview record cited by Elliott, Keystone Armory in Edinburgh contacted investigators after the shooting to report that a man resembling Crooks had visited the store on May 25, 2024.

10:30Employees reportedly describing the man as spending roughly an hour inside, accompanied by one man believed to be in his 30s and another older man with a gray beard. The customer purchasing 20 rounds of ammo, though not the same type Crooks used in the assassination attempt. After the July shooting, the store contacting the FBI and supplying investigators with its surveillance video. Elliott noting Crooks was scheduled to attend a firearms class elsewhere in Pennsylvania later that afternoon, making the timeline possible, though not conclusive. A separate FBI interview summary documenting another interaction one day before the assassination attempt.

11:12Officials at the Clareton Sportsman's Club telling investigators that surveillance video showed Crooks speaking with another man while the two men were alone on the rifle range July 12th. Agents reportedly photographing the unidentified man and his vehicle from images held by a club official, then checking the names listed in the range's sign-in records. The release offering no public account of what investigators ultimately learned about that encounter. Other records revealing agents were searching for a third cell phone believed to be connected to Crooks. On July 21st, agents reportedly conducting a coordinated search of the wooded area and a nearby dumpster for what the document calls, quote, a phone believed to be associated with Thomas Crooks.

11:59Investigators also searching an apartment complex whose coordinates had been stored on one of Crooks's devices. By that point, investigators had already recovered Crooks' primary Samsung phone from his body. The evidence log also listing a second Samsung containing a year of calls and messages ending in July 2023. Elliott noting the separate search in the wooded area indicates agents believed Crooks had possessed a third device, though he reports they found nothing. The FBI maintaining that Crooks acted alone, saying its investigation included more than 1 ,000 interviews, roughly 2 ,000 public tips, 100 subpoenas, and the examination of 13 electronic devices.

12:46Coming up, a wide-ranging White House briefing from Attorney General Todd Blanche addressing AI and a potential investigation into actress Hayden Panettiere's death, and prosecutors ruling out the death penalty for Nick Reiner.

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13:51If you are looking to take back control of your health from the inside out, consider Armra, and they have a special deal for you. Go to armra.com slash Megan, or enter Megan to get 30 % off your first subscription order. That's A-R-M-R-A dot com slash Megan. Attorney General Todd Blanche hosting the White House press briefing from the Rose Garden yesterday as the latest administration member to fill in for the vacant press secretary position. The briefing is spending some time on the hot topic of the week, AI. A.G. Blanche addressing what role the DOJ will play as the tech advances. As far as AI is concerned, we have a lot of, there's a lot of criminal laws.

14:34And so if anybody associated with AI violates criminal law, we'll investigate that. We already have. There's plenty of cases involving AI that we've charged individuals. I do not think it's the job of the Department of Justice to regulate. We're prosecutors, not regulators. So we're not going to try to regulate AI. AI is extraordinarily beneficial to our society. There's a lot of great work that AI does, and it's also something that conveniently has become a flashpoint this week. And the president spoke about that, and I very much agree with him. The flashpoint erupting after some of the country's largest AI companies are now calling for lawmakers to regulate their own industry and slow their pace of development, warning of potentially catastrophic risks.

15:18President Trump branding the campaign a hoax, while critics question whether the industry's biggest players are using regulation to protect their position and box out smaller competitors. A.G. Blanche, too, questioning the timing of the campaign. This AI issue that's suddenly come up two months before an election is being, the president calls it a hoax. The way this has come around today and not three months ago, I mean, I was watching the news today. Every Democrat senator suddenly races to a microphone to talk about AI after being eerily silent for months and months and months. So to talk about the timing of this as being nothing but an effort to influence the midterms, I shouldn't have to say that out loud.

15:59Of course that's what it is. And that shouldn't be what drives the decisions that we're making around AI. We can't lose the AI race to China, right? President Trump says that, everybody says that, but they say it because it's true. A.G. Blanche also addressing reports actress Hayden Panettiere may have died after taking a counterfeit pill laced with fentanyl and what the DOJ is doing to target the people selling those deadly drugs. So when it comes to fentanyl, they're not fake pills, they're death pills, right? So they're pills that kill people. And there's a federal statute that allows us to go after, assuming we can prove who the dealer is to go after them and put them in prison for murder.

16:42And we do it in every district in this country. And it's a big emphasis of DA, Minister Cole, and our prosecutors around the country. So when we can prove, and sometimes if somebody is an addict, it's difficult to prove who they actually got the pill from. But in the cases where we know who the dealer was and we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person sold the death pill to the victim who then dies, that's a federal crime. And that's something that we will readily prosecute as often as we can. L.A. prosecutors taking the death penalty off the table in the case against Nick Reiner, the 33-year-old accused of murdering his parents, famed Hollywood director Rob Reiner and wife, photographer and producer Michelle.

17:30Reiner accused of fatally stabbing his parents inside their Brentwood home during the early morning hours of December 14th. A massage therapist arriving for a scheduled appointment that afternoon, contacting the couple's daughter Romy after no one answered the gate. Romy discovering her father's body, first responders finding both Rob and Michelle dead inside. Police arresting Nick later that evening near the University of Southern California, roughly 13 miles from the crime scene. Prosecutors charging Reiner two days later, the case initially moving toward a preliminary hearing to determine whether they had enough evidence to take him to trial.

18:08A grand jury instead returning an indictment on July 20th, allowing prosecutors to bypass that hearing. The indictment unsealed August 12th, charging Reiner with two counts of first-degree murder and alleging the special circumstances of multiple murders and murder by means of lying in wait. Reiner pleading not guilty to the entire indictment that same day, Reiner currently being held without bail in downtown LA. The special circumstance charges making him eligible for either the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole. Ahead of yesterday's pretrial hearing, L.A. County District Attorney Nathan Hockman announcing which punishment his office will pursue.

18:53After a careful and thorough review of all these factors, the district attorney's office will not be seeking the death penalty in this case. That means that the maximum sentence that Mr. Reiner will be looking at is life without the possibility of parole. We did speak with Nick Reiner's siblings. They made their views very clear. We took their views into consideration in ultimately deciding not to seek the death penalty. Hockman declining to reveal precisely what Jake and Romy Reiner told prosecutors. Rob and Michelle themselves longtime opponents of the death penalty. NBC News reporting the couple previously advocated on behalf of Texas death row inmate Nanan Williams, developing a close relationship with him over several years.

19:39Nick Reiner appearing in court yesterday in a brown jail jumpsuit and shackles, reportedly remaining expressionless throughout the brief hearing. Reiner, meanwhile, waging a parallel legal fight in probate court, seeking access to roughly$1.5 million from a trust established by his parents to help pay for his defense. that dispute returning to court October 23rd. We spoke with the MK True Crime Show co-host, Phil Holloway, about why the DA may have taken the death penalty off the table. Prosecutors almost universally take into account the wishes and the desires of surviving family members when they make the decision, often a hard decision, on whether or not to seek the death penalty in a case.

20:24But that doesn't mean that the wishes of any survivors necessarily completely drive the decision. After all, the tail doesn't wag the dog. The prosecutor has other considerations as well. Certain things like the practical effect of the decision. Will the death penalty ever be carried out if a jury were to impose it? And in California, the answer is almost certainly no. There's been a moratorium in place in California since March 13th, 2019, and it's not going anywhere anytime soon. and that'll do it for your am update i'm megan kelly join me back here for the mk show live on sirius xm's the megan kelly channel 111 at noon east on youtube.com slash megan kelly and on all podcast platforms hey chicagoland the wayfair store is in your neighborhood at edens plaza and wilmette finally you can feel the fabric sit on the sectionals and even open the refrigerators Plus, our in-store designers will help you bring it all together with free one-on-one design support for any project on any budget.

21:31Yep, we said free. Oh, and did we mention the cafe? So what are you waiting for? Come see All That's In Store. Visit the Wayfair store today at Edens Plaza and Wilmette.