OMITTED

What the news leaves out.

← Omitted front page

Kash Patel Defends FBI Bestiality Hiring Policy

7 sources · updated 2026-09-17
Left 80% Center 0% Right 20%
4 left · 0 center · 1 right

What happened

On Tuesday, FBI Director Kash Patel testified at a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing about a hiring-standards revision, first reported by CBS News in August, that ended automatic disqualification for some applicants with past involvement in prostitution, theft from an employer, or bestiality or animal cruelty if the incident occurred before age 18. Patel said staff recommended the change after showing him cases of applicants forced into such acts through human trafficking, and that those people should be considered rather than automatically barred. An FBI spokesperson said the bureau was “not relaxing hiring standards,” that applicants who engaged in criminal sexual acts remain ineligible, and that in previous years “a number of applicants” had sexual-abuse histories that raised questions about prostitution, bestiality, or similar issues “through zero fault of their own.” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) told Patel the policy dropped the bar for applicants who had “engaged in bestiality, not victims of bestiality”; Patel replied that those who “engaged” “were victims of bestiality because they were forced to do so,” and he told Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) that a person who voluntarily had sex with an animal “cannot” be an FBI agent and, asked whether they “ought to be in jail,” said “They all are.” Democrats sent Patel a letter on Monday seeking more information about the change and the applicants it covers; the FBI did not provide those figures.
Sourcing check · Fully on the record · 5 articles

4 of 4 articles cite a named source for the story. It was on the record from the first report. Sen. Dick Durbin denied part of it on the record.

What these terms mean and how they're counted
On the record · names a source 4 of 4
On the record means the article cites a source by name for the story's main claim: a person, or an institution speaking officially, such as a company statement or a named agency's spokesperson. The opposite is an unnamed source. The count is how many of the counted articles cite at least one such source; the names are everyone named across them, each once however the articles spell it. Here: Kash Patel, Dick Durbin, John Kennedy, Sen. John Kennedy, Sen. Dick Durbin and FBI spokesperson
Primary evidence · cites a document or data 1 of 4
Primary evidence means the article cites a record you could check yourself: a court filing or ruling, a dataset or report, a recording or transcript, an official statement or press release, market data. A quote is not a document. The count is how many articles cite one. Here: Senate hearing, official statement
Credits another outlet 0 of 4
The article says the story comes from another outlet's reporting (“first reported by Reuters”). Those articles relay the story; they are not independent confirmation. Here: Each article presents its own reporting.
Unnamed sources 1 of 4
The main claim is attributed to people who are not identified: “people familiar with the matter”, “officials said”. The count is how many articles do this.
On-record denial 1
A named person or institution says the claim, or part of it, is not true. It is on the record — someone signed their name to it — but it is not confirmation, so it never counts toward On the record. Criticizing or dissenting from a decision is not a denial. The count is how many people or institutions deny it; each is listed with the first article that carried the denial. Here: Sen. Dick Durbin (Daily Caller, Sep 15, 19:52 UTC)
How it developed
When the first report landed and whether it named anyone; when the first named source and the first document appeared. Here: First report Sep 15, 17:20 UTC by The Guardian, naming its source. First document in the first report, from The Guardian (Senate hearing).
Not counted 1
Opinion, analysis and video pieces, and articles too short to assess. Every count above is out of the counted articles. An article republished under a new headline is one article.
This is about who is cited, not whether the story is true. Each source below says what it names. How we count
Omitted — what each side leaves out

Unpacked

Right-leaning coverage omits the policy's age cutoff and the remaining ban on criminal sexual acts, so the change sounds like an open door. Left-leaning coverage in the Guardian reports that bestiality or animal cruelty is weighed only when the incident happened before age 18. Right-leaning coverage in the Daily Caller says some applicants remain eligible "under certain circumstances" and never states those limits. Knowing the cutoff recasts the hearing as a fight over juvenile trafficking victims, not over adults who had sex with animals joining the bureau. Right-leaning coverage in the Daily Caller labels the change a "bestiality hiring policy." Left-leaning coverage describes a rollback of automatic disqualification and Patel's claim that the bureau would otherwise punish trafficking victims. How many applicants were rejected for forced bestiality, and has the FBI hired any under the new rule?
Bottom line

The Daily Caller never prints the age-18 cap the Guardian puts on the FBI's bestiality exception.

The receipts — 6 facts one side's coverage lacks
  • Bestiality or animal cruelty is considered only if the incident took place before the applicant was 18 contextin The Guardian · absent from right-leaning coverage
  • The FBI did not respond to a question about how many applicants fall into this category contextin The Guardian · absent from right-leaning coverage
  • Democrats sent Patel a letter requesting more information about the rule change and the applicants in these categories official statementin The Guardian · absent from right-leaning coverage
  • Durbin told Patel he had turned the qualification issue upside down official statementin Daily Caller · absent from left-leaning coverage
  • Patel said people who voluntarily had sex with animals all are in jail official statementin NBC News · absent from right-leaning coverage
  • FOIA records appear to show Patel directing public affairs staff to identify social media accounts criticizing him contextin Daily Caller · absent from left-leaning coverage
The Left View
Left-leaning outlets presented the hearing as Patel defending a rollback he could not document. The Guardian and NBC News treated Durbin’s engaged-versus-victims distinction as the core problem, presenting Patel’s reply as collapsing those who “engaged” into “victims,” and they stressed that it is unclear how many applicants fit the category and that the FBI did not supply data. They also highlighted Kennedy’s “Why would you even get into bestiality?” and whether the old rule “disqualified the animal,” using a Republican generally allied with the administration to show the change “really hurt” the FBI’s reputation. Coverage framed Democrats’ Monday letter as a still-unmet demand for evidence that the trafficking cases Patel cited exist in hiring files.
The Right View
The Daily Caller framed Patel as doubling down despite criticism from both parties and treated the trafficking-victim rationale with ridicule, including that it would prefer FBI agents “not to be people who were victimized by a goat.” It amplified Durbin’s charge that Patel had “turned it upside down” and Kennedy’s questions about how someone would “involuntarily do it” and whether “Joe” who participated “as the human” should be disqualified. The coverage presented the policy as generating needless scrutiny while the bureau struggles to recruit, quoting Patel that traffickers force people into “degrading acts of all kinds” and that he had “eliminated the bureaucracy” that kept such applicants from being considered.
Our Take (balanced)
The left’s strongest argument is textual and evidentiary: Durbin’s point that the standard as described covers people who “engaged,” not a defined class of trafficking victims, plus the FBI’s failure to produce any count of such applicants, which leaves Patel’s forced-victim account unsupported in public. The right’s strongest argument, from Kennedy and the Daily Caller, is institutional: even if some victims exist, writing bestiality into hiring exceptions invites ridicule and, as Kennedy put it, “really hurt” the FBI’s reputation when it is already having “a tough time attracting agents,” a tension sharpened by Patel’s own statement that voluntary participants “cannot” serve and “they all are” in jail. The central unresolved tension is whether the written rule is a narrow, force-based exception matching Patel’s testimony, or a broader pre-18 “whole of person” waiver that does not require a trafficking finding—a gap the hearing and the FBI’s public statements did not close.

7 sources

More stories

The week's bottom lines, in your inbox

One email a week: the five stories that mattered and what they actually mean. Free.