By Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff
WASHINGTON, Sept 15 (Reuters) – FBI Director Kash Patel told lawmakers on Tuesday he changed the bureau’s hiring standards to eliminate bestiality as an automatic disqualifier because he did not want to bar trafficking victims who had been forced to have sex with animals, drawing an incredulous response from Republicans and Democrats alike.
“We did not want to punish victims of bestiality, victims who were trafficked,” Patel said in response to one question during his testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.
Patel later said that previous regulations disqualified “any individual who participated on either side of it.”
“Either side of what, the bestiality?” Senator John Kennedy, a Republican, asked. “So you disqualified the animal?”
“We have great canines, but we’re not going to disqualify them,” Patel said, laughing.
In a more than four-hour oversight hearing, his first appearance before the Senate since May, Patel also faced questions about his agency’s handling of files related to the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the use of taxpayer funds for personal travel and allegations that he has politicized the FBI.
But it was his revised hiring standards that drew some of the most noteworthy questions.
“Why would you even get into bestiality?” Kennedy asked, after noting that prospective FBI agents may be wondering if their political point of view matters. Patel said he was told that some trafficking victims forced into bestiality had been previously disqualified from jobs.
“But you’re not telling us today that if a human being had sex with an animal, they can still be an FBI agent?” Kennedy asked. Patel said no.
Republicans asked Patel about the FBI’s probes into a prior federal investigation of Republican President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, an issue Republican committee chair Senator Chuck Grassley has called a top priority for the panel.
Tuesday’s appearance came after prosecutor Joe DiGenova, who had been leading a Justice Department investigation that sought to show that Trump was the victim of a criminal conspiracy, abruptly resigned last week.
FBI AND ELECTIONS
Patel appeared to confirm media reports that a dozen FBI Iran experts were fired this year because of their alleged “weaponization” efforts, namely that they were part of the investigation into Trump’s alleged retention of classified documents.
“I think what’s most important is to not have a weaponized FBI,” Patel said. “I will endeavor every single day to make sure we have no one there that is doing that.”
Patel, a Trump appointee, has been a subject of controversy since he took over as head of the FBI. He drew criticism over media reports about him scuba diving at a Pearl Harbor memorial, and for drinking beer while celebrating with the gold-medal-winning U.S. men’s hockey team at the Milan Winter Olympics.
He has also faced scrutiny over his use of a government plane and luxury cars, and Trump administration investigations into journalists and their sources.
Patel said in a letter released ahead of the hearing that he has reimbursed personal travel expenses and said the luxury cars were cheaper than others the FBI has previously bought.
Patel grew increasingly frustrated with Democrats who questioned him over his personal conduct, including asking Senator Peter Welch if he was hard of hearing.
“Everyone sees you for the complete and total fraud you are,” Patel told Welch, who was asking whether FBI resources had been used to investigate an Atlantic magazine journalist who had written about Patel’s alleged excessive drinking.
Patel also said the FBI would monitor the midterm elections from its field offices but told Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, he would follow the law that bars agents from being deployed inside polling places on Election Day.
But Patel later refused to pledge that he would not interfere in the election.
“I pledge unequivocally that I will not participate in your charade of lies,” Patel said.
(Reporting by Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff; Editing by Andy Sullivan, Will Dunham, Bill Berkrot and Cynthia Osterman)
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