FBI Director Kash Patel to face U.S. Senate grilling over travel, 2020 election probe

FBI Director Kash Patel testifies before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday. Evan Vucci/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?”