FBI Director Congress

FBI Director Kash Patel is defending the bureau’s loosening of hiring requirements regarding prostitution and bestiality, saying the changes were meant to enable victims of those acts to apply for employment without fear of automatic disqualification. The FBI quietly issued guidance this past spring lifting a categorical hiring ban on applicants who had previously engaged in prostitution, and it made a similar change with regard to bestiality. Pressed about the moves at a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, Patel denied that the changes reflected a lowering of employment standards. He insisted that they were designed to protect victims who had been forced to engage in that conduct and preclude them from being automatically disqualified.