Hearingheld on September 15 in the Senate Judiciary Committee and dedicated to oversight of the activities of the FBI, lasted more than four hours and turned into a series of altercations between senators and the head of the department, Kash Patel. Lawmakers have pressed him to explain relaxation of hiring rules for some candidates who engaged in acts of bestiality, accused the director of hiding parts of the “Epstein files” and raised questions about an alleged scheme to pay more than $1 million to FBI employees. What Patel responded to the accusations and claims of senators is in the RTVI material.
One of the topics of the bipartisan hearing was the new FBI hiring rules adopted in 2026. In particular, they excluded the automatic ban on work for some candidates who had a history of sex trafficking or who had engaged in acts of bestiality before reaching 18 years of age. This fact raised eyebrows among senators, but the head of the FBI insisted that the purpose of the changes was not to lower standards, but to protect victims of human trafficking and others who were forced into similar acts.
“We [в ФБР] they didn’t want to punish victims of bestiality, victims of human trafficking. We didn't want this to be an automatic basis for refusal. [в приеме на работу]if you have been a victim of these terrible, heinous acts,” Patel said.
Democratic Senator Dick Durbin noted that the new rules talk about candidates who participated in acts of bestiality, and not directly about the victims. In response, Patel argued that such candidates could themselves be victims who were coerced into these actions. He also added that his department does not intend to punish the victims and deprive them of the opportunity to serve the United States.
The FBI director also had a skirmish with Republican John Kennedy, senator from Louisiana. Patel said the old rules disqualified any candidate who engaged in such activities, to which Kennedy clarified whether that covered bestiality and jokingly asked whether the rule also disqualified an animal. To this, the head of the department responded with a laugh that the FBI has “excellent service dogs.”
Kennedy also quipped about who proposed the change in the first place, and asked Patel why he didn't tell the proposer, “What planet did you come from?” Responding to this, the FBI director explained that he himself initially reacted to the proposal of his subordinates with bewilderment, but then he was shown cases where people were forced to do similar actions, and subsequently they tried to get a job in the FBI.
Another reason for questions to Patel was accusations of insufficient disclosure of materials from the case of sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein. Durbin said the FBI director “played a key role” in hiding part of the “Epstein files.”
The Democrat said Patel diverted more than a thousand FBI agents from their primary tasks to “review every page of material around the clock.” In response, the head of the department said that, on the contrary, he contributed to the disclosure of information on the case, and emphasized that about 3.5 million pages of materials related to Epstein were published.
In addition, during the hearing, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal tried to get Patel to unequivocally commit not to send FBI agents to polling places during the November congressional elections. The director said FBI agents would be working in 56 field offices to provide election security, but did not give Blumenthal the definitive answer he requested regarding the presence of agents directly at the polling stations. RTVI previously reported on the alignment of political forces after the completed primaries.
During the same hearing, Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of California got Patel to promise that the FBI would not seize ballots, voting machines or other election materials related to the midterm elections until after voting was completed.
Democrats also accused Patel of firing veteran FBI officials involved in investigations related to Trump, including the Mar-a-Lago case, and creating a fund with $1 million in “illegal bonuses.” The senators said those taxpayer funds were illegally funneled to a small group of agents who covered up the director’s alcohol abuse and illegal high spending habits.
No official decisions were made following the hearing. Patel promised to provide the committee with answers to written questions by the end of October.
