Did he answer the question?

FBI Director Kash Patel’s answers to Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) during the September 15, 2026, Senate Judiciary Committee Oversight Hearing were that the FBI is “not into bestiality,” that voluntary participants remain disqualified, and that the policy change only removed automatic disqualification so trafficking victims forced into the act could still be considered.

The exchange included these points:

•  Patel said the old rules automatically barred “any individual who participated on either side of it.” Kennedy asked, “So you disqualified the animal?” Patel replied, laughing, “We have great canines, but we’re not going to disqualify them.”

•  When Kennedy asked why the FBI would “even get into bestiality,” Patel said, “We are not into bestiality.”

•  On a hypothetical applicant (“If Joe participated in bestiality, not as the animal but as the human…”), Patel said: “If he voluntarily did it, sure [he should be disqualified]. But if he was trafficked into it…” He described traffickers forcing victims into “degrading acts of all kinds.”

•  Asked directly whether a human who had sex with an animal can still be an FBI agent, Patel said no.

•  He added that his first reaction to the staff recommendation was the same as Kennedy’s (“what planet did you parachute in from?”), but he approved the change after being shown cases of forced victims who had applied to the Bureau. The new standard is “not an automatic disqualification.”

Patel framed the revision as protecting victims rather than lowering standards for people who engaged in the conduct willingly. Kennedy pressed him throughout on why the topic was addressed at all given recruitment challenges.