FBI Director Kash Patel defended on Tuesday (September 16, 2026) a recent policy change to allow some applicants who have engaged in prostitution and bestiality to be considered for employment, insisting that the move was made to enable victims of those acts to apply for a job without fear of automatic disqualification.
He’s like an 18-year old-kid who wants to join a fraternity that he could never be a member of, doing keg stands and chugging with friends. The subject arose during a fiery Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in which Mr. Patel clashed with Democrats over his firing of agents who participated in investigations of President Donald Trump and suggested that agents might be dispatched to the polls on Election Day amid Justice Department and White House concerns about voter fraud. “He’s an incompetent lackey. Cory Booker of New Jersey, his voice rising in anger.
He’s an embarrassment to the agency and wouldn’t qualify even to be an FBI agent,” said an exasperated Sen.
Patel on the firing of national security agents with expertise in Iran shortly before the U.S. launched attacks on the country last February. ALSO WATCH FBI Director and US Senator have heated exchange at hearing over drinking allegations report “We 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 were a victim of these awful, heinous acts,” Mr. “We are not going to target victims and prevent them from serving in their capacity to serve this country. The questioning spanned partisan lines, with Republican Sen. Asked whether the FBI has the general authority to monitor elections, Mr. Patel replied that responsibility rests with the Department of Homeland Security. Democrat Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut pressed Mr. He noted that the agents had participated in an FBI investigation into Trump over his retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. “Do you think firing the president’s political opponents is more important than retaining the decades of experience and expertise monitoring intelligence threats from Iran? Mr. Blumenthal asked.
Patel said. John Kennedy of Louisiana grilling Patel about the rationale for a change that the FBI director said was proposed to him by subordinates. He said the FBI’s presence on Election Day will be “housed” with election crimes coordinators at each of the bureau’s 56 field offices, but under questioning, he declined to rule out that agents would be dispatched to the polls in the event of problems or reports of interference. “I pledge unequivocally that I will not participate in your charade of lies,” Patel said, later calling Welch a “total fraud. FBI firings were also a featured topic of the hearing Patel repeatedly touted what he asserted was his record-breaking success at the FBI, proclaiming the “most prolific reduction in crime in U.S. history” even though violent crime rates in American cities had begun dropping well before Mr.
Trump took office last year for reasons that are difficult to pinpoint.
