Kash Patel, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, told confused members of the Senate judiciary committee on Tuesday that new FBI hiring standards are aimed at protecting “victims of bestiality.”

Prior to the current administration, FBI policy was to bar applicants who had, among other things, hired sex workers, stolen from an employer, or engaged in bestiality. In August, CBS News reported that these standards had been relaxed and that multiple sources claimed “the FBI did so to facilitate hiring in some cases.”

According to a letter from Senate Democrats to Patel, new standards appear to have been quietly enacted as early as February 2025. They now allow for the hiring of someone who, for example, stole from an employer more than three years ago, or “paid for sex fewer than three times more than 10 years ago”—traditionally disqualifying because it carries blackmail risk—as long as they weren’t in a position of “public trust.”

But one change has captured more attention than the rest: A “history of bestiality or animal cruelty,” according to the letter, “is not automatically disqualifying under this new policy either, so long as the conduct occurred before the applicant turned 18.”

“You dropped automatic disqualification for applicants who have been engaged in bestiality,” said Senator Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, during an oversight hearing Tuesday. “Not victims of bestiality, applicants who have been engaged. Do you disagree with that?”

“Applicants who have engaged in bestiality means they were victims of bestiality because they were forced to do so,” replied Patel. “At this FBI we are not going to criminalize and prevent victims from serving.”

In a further exchange, Patel explained to Senator John Kennedy, the Louisiana Republican, that previously, regulations had barred anyone who engaged in bestiality “on either side of it.”

“Either side of what, the bestiality?” asked Kennedy. “So you disqualified the animal?”

“We have great canines, but we’re not going to disqualify them,” said Patel.

Kennedy said that the change in standards had “really hurt the FBI.”

“Why would you even get into bestiality?” he asked.

“We’re not into bestiality,” said Patel.

In a response to a request for clarification from WIRED, the FBI sent a statement that suggests multiple individuals have been disqualified from applying for the agency because they were victims of human-trafficking-related bestiality.

“The FBI has and always will maintain the highest suitability standards for its applicants and employees in the US Government,” the FBI’s national press office said. “The changes you reference allow the FBI to consider applicants and consider the whole of a person in certain circumstances. For example, the FBI has had a number of applicants in previous years who suffered sexual abuse in their past, causing questions about prostitution, bestiality, or other similar issues to affect their background check process through zero fault of their own. Previously, those applicants would be barred from consideration. Now they can be considered. It is false to suggest criminal behavior like this is no longer disqualifying at the FBI—any applicant who has engaged in criminal sexual acts like those referenced would of course not be eligible for employment, and it is ridiculous to suggest otherwise.”

Under President Donald Trump, the FBI has lost a huge number of experienced personnel. The letter from Senate Democrats asserted that since the beginning of Trump’s second term, a “purge” carried out by Patel has led to the departure of “over 5,000 nonpartisan career personnel, all six former Executive Assistant Directors, and at least 18 Special Agents in Charge,” as well as more than a thousand special agents.