Donald Trump’s FBI director Kash Patel has spoken about a hiring-rule change that no longer automatically bans applicants linked to it, telling senators it’s meant to stop victims being punished
A close ally of US President Donald Trump has been forced to defend a change to FBI hiring rules about bestiality. The organisation has rolled back an automatic ban on applicants who have previously been linked to having sex with animals.
FBI director Kash Patel faced angry and baffled questions from senators during a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Tuesday (September 15). It comes after lawmakers learned updated background-check guidance no longer treats bestiality as an instant disqualifier for would-be agents.
The unusual topic surfaced when senators challenged him over removing barriers that had previously stopped applicants who had engaged in prostitution and bestiality from being qualified for a job at the FBI.
“I’m trying to understand why you did this,” Republican Senator John Kennedy told Patel. “We’re having a tough time attracting agents, good quality agents we all can trust … Why would you even get into bestiality?”
Mr Patel insisted the change is being misunderstood and said it was designed to avoid punishing victims rather than letting offenders through the net, the Guardian reported. He told senators he was shown “cases” in which otherwise qualified applicants had been denied consideration because, he claimed, they had been forced into bestiality as a result of human trafficking or abuse.
“They showed me cases in which people were forced into it and had applied to the FBI, and so I thought: ‘They should be considered. It’s not an automatic disqualification.’ That’s all,” Mr Patel replied.
Mr Kennedy, generally seen as an ally of Trump’s administration, reportedly reacted with disbelief and warned the move could further damage the FBI’s reputation. He added: “I say this with respect to the person who recommended it, why didn’t you just say: ‘What planet did you parachute in from?’”
Patel also tried to draw a hard line between coerced victims and voluntary offenders, telling senators the FBI would not hire anyone who willingly engaged in criminal sexual acts or animal abuse, and adding that voluntary offenders “cannot be” FBI agents and “ought to be in jail”.
The FBI later insisted the bureau was “not relaxing hiring standards” and argued the change simply allows investigators to consider “the whole of person” in certain circumstances.
A spokesperson said the bureau had “a number of applicants in previous years who suffered sexual abuse in their past, causing questions about prostitution, bestiality or other similar issues to affect their background check process through zero fault of their own”. It remains unclear how many FBI applicants fall into the category Mr Patel described.
Democrat Dick Durbin also reportedly challenged Patel’s framing of the issue, saying the new wording appeared to cover people who had committed the act rather than victims. “You dropped automatic disqualification for applicants who have been engaged in bestiality, not victims of bestiality – applicants who have engaged,” Mr Durbin said to Mr Patel.
Mr Patel responded: “Applicants who have engaged in bestiality means they were victims of bestiality because they were forced to do so.”
The exchange took an even stranger turn when Mr Kennedy mocked the controversy by joking about whether the rule change applied to both “participants” in the act. At one point, he asked whether the change “disqualified the animal” from FBI service.
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