Kash Patel Refuses to Take a Republican’s Lifeline

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President Trump appointed Kash Patel to lead the FBI not because of his brief experience in law enforcement but because he is a political brawler. The problem, as Patel demonstrated yesterday, is that he is not a very good one: No skilled political messenger would have allowed nearly every headline about a Senate hearing to connect their name and agency with bestiality.

Yesterday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing was Patel’s first appearance on Capitol Hill since a raucous visit in May. (At that hearing, Patel and Senator Chris Van Hollen verbally agreed to each take a self-screening test for alcohol abuse. Van Hollen posted his results the next day, but his office said it never heard back from Patel.) It was also Patel’s first hearing since CBS News revealed changes to FBI hiring standards, which reportedly now allow the bureau to consider applicants who have hired prostitutes fewer than three times, stole from an employer more than three years ago, or engaged in sex with animals before the age of 18.

Democrats were eager to press Patel on the changes, but the hearing’s buzziest exchange turned out to be between Patel and Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, a Republican. During his questioning, Kennedy seemed to be doing everything he could to offer Patel a chance to defuse the story—but Patel, unable or unwilling to recognize the openings, didn’t take them.

The ranking Democrat, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, asked about the new requirements first. Patel said the bestiality change was designed to ensure that people who had been forced to engage in sex with animals were not shut out of an FBI job. “We did not want to punish victims of bestiality,” Patel said. “We are not going to target victims.” Whether this is accurate is unclear. The memo laying out the new standards has not been made public, but sources told CBS News that the rules “do not distinguish between candidates who were coerced into sexual activity with animals, as opposed to those who engaged in such acts willingly.”

Kennedy was the next senator to quiz Patel, and he tried to do some cleanup. “I’m really trying to understand,” he said, rubbing his face. “’Cause I listened to the exchange between you and Senator Durbin, and I’ve read a few news accounts, and I’m confused.” He asked Patel, almost rhetorically, to affirm that the FBI still had hiring standards, and Patel argued that changes had been necessary to ensure the quick hiring of good agents. As for bestiality, the old rule had “automatically disqualified any individual who participated on either side of it.”

Kennedy, a bit of a ham, couldn’t resist a jibe: “So you disqualified the animal?” But he was also losing patience. “I’m trying to understand why you did this,” he said, and then offered an unusually frank description of how many Senate hearings work today: “I understand the game. People try to make you look bad. We do the same thing when the other party’s in office.” He gave Patel another shot. The director replied that sometimes human traffickers force victims to engage in bestiality, and that the FBI did not want to disqualify victims—even though, again, the guidelines reportedly don’t make such a distinction.

An exasperated Kennedy wasn’t buying it. “Someone came to you and recommended” this? he asked. “And when you saw bestiality—I say this with respect—the person who recommended it, why didn’t you just say, ‘What planet did you parachute in from? Why do I wanna lead with my chin and get into bestiality?’”

One answer is that Patel just isn’t very politically astute. It’s hard to claim you’re cleaning up and reforming the FBI, as Patel has, when you’re allowing johns and people who stole from their employers to apply. As for bestiality, more careful wording of the FBI memo that first laid out the new standards would have avoided the controversy. Better preparation for the hearing might have given him a clearer explanation than what he offered. And sharper instincts would have told Patel that Kennedy was trying to help him out. Any high-level appointee should be able to get through a congressional hearing without bestiality becoming the main topic. Instead, Patel takes his cues from Trump, whose instinct is always to push back. But what works for Trump doesn’t work for others. It’s not even clear whether it works for Trump anymore.

Patel may have felt a need to loosen qualifications for agents because the FBI has experienced an exodus of staffers since he took over. More than 1,100 special agents, who had an average tenure of almost 22 years, left in 2025 alone, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management. Durbin has alleged that more than 5,000 nonpartisan civilian staffers departed last year. Some left of their own accord, and others were fired who were involved in investigations that Trump and Patel don’t like, such as those looking into the January 6 riot. This spring, my colleague Sarah Fitzpatrick reported that Patel’s colleagues had been concerned about what they described as Patel’s excessive drinking, repeated absences, emotional outbursts, and impulsive behavior. (Patel denied the allegations and sued Fitzpatrick and The Atlantic for defamation, demanding $250 million.)

If Patel doesn’t have the skills and temperament to run the FBI well, isn’t really cleaning up the bureau’s ranks, and can’t even get through a standard Senate hearing without things going off the rails, one might wonder why he’s in the job at all. Lower hiring standards apparently start at the top.

Related:

Kash Patel’s performative deflections
The FBI director is MIA.

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Kash Patel Refuses to Take a Republican’s Lifeline

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