Kash Patel Defends FBI Policy Letting Some Applicants With Bestiality, Prostitution Pasts Apply

At a contentious Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, FBI Director Kash Patel defended guidance the bureau quietly issued last spring that lifted a categorical hiring bar for applicants with a history of prostitution, and made a similar change regarding bestiality. Patel said the changes were meant to avoid automatically disqualifying people who had been trafficked or otherwise victimized, not to lower hiring standards.

Republican Sen. John Kennedy pressed Patel on the bestiality change, asking what "planet" the recommending staffer had "parachuted in from"; Patel said subordinates showed him cases of coerced victims and he found the exception justified. The Associated Press has reported the FBI still plans to bar some prostitution-linked applicants within the past decade. The hearing also covered Patel's firing of agents who worked on investigations of Trump and his personal travel, with Democrats calling his tenure an embarrassment to the bureau.

Patel did not rule out dispatching FBI agents to polling places on Election Day.