What happened
FBI Director Kash Patel Tuesday sparred with Senate Democrats at a Judiciary Committee hearing that touched on his firings of experienced agents, melding of personal and taxpayer-funded travel, alleged agency politicization, the Jeffrey Epstein files and his refusal to rule out sending federal agents to voting sites in November.
Some of the “most noteworthy questions” involved Patel’s recent decision to remove bestiality and prostitution as automatic disqualifiers for FBI job applicants, Reuters said. His explanation that “he did not want to bar trafficking victims who had been forced to have sex with animals” drew an “incredulous response from Republicans and Democrats alike.”
Who said what
The “fiery” hours-long hearing “featured the name-calling and bitingly personal exchanges that have come to define Patel’s appearances on Capitol Hill,” The Associated Press said. As Patel “lashed out at Democrats,” said NBC News, an FBI social media account “launched attacks on several” committee members. The “tension climaxed,” Politico said, when the “normally genial” committee chair Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) “angrily asked” Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) if he was “ready to shut up.”
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What next?
Patel’s suggestion that he was “open to sending federal agents to polling places” raised alarms among Democrats, The New York Times said. “Do you pledge that you will not, in any way, interfere in the will of the American people when they go to the polls in November?” Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) asked. Patel said he would “pledge unequivocally that I will not participate in your charade of lies.”
