Senate Judiciary Committee members from both parties subjected FBI Director Kash Patel to nearly five hours of intense questioning Tuesday over his leadership of the bureau.
Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa warned Patel in his opening remarks that he would face harsh criticism from Democrats on the panel.
Ranking member Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois set an aggressive tone early, calling Patel the “least qualified and most partisan FBI director in our nation’s history” in his opening statement.
Democratic senators pressed Patel on his use of an FBI jet and on changes his department made to lower the agency’s hiring standards for new applicants.
Patel faced direct confrontation over a CBS News report revealing the FBI had removed automatic disqualifications for applicants who had engaged in acts of bestiality, among other previously disqualifying behaviors.
Patel defended the policy change by arguing that “we did not want to punish victims of bestiality, victims who were trafficked.”
The day before the hearing, Democratic senators sent Patel a letter warning that having “dangerously thinned the FBI’s experienced workforce,” the shortfall now justified “admitting applicants with histories of employee theft, paying for sex, or bestiality.”
When pressed to pledge that the FBI would not interfere in elections, Patel turned sharply on the questioning senator, saying: “I have pledged unequivocally that I will not participate in your charade of lies.”
Patel also faced scrutiny over his decision to assign hundreds of analysts to review election records in Fulton County, Georgia, and over his answers on whether agents would be sent to polling locations.
On a more favorable note for Patel, he pointed to the murder rate falling to a 20-year low and confirmed that all 10 people on the FBI’s most wanted list had been apprehended during his tenure.
