In a bizarre Senate committee hearing, the FBI director defends his tenure and disrespects Democrats.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/28517588

FBI Director Kash Patel might be the most ludicrous, scandal-dogged Donald Trump henchman in this incompetent, embarrassing second administration. An Atlantic report on Patel in April chronicled a pattern of heavy drinking, odd behavior, and mysterious absences—it was headlined “The FBI Director Is MIA.” Representative Jamie Raskin is investigating his payments of more than $1 million in taxpayer dollars to favored FBI agents. He’s fired long-term, respected FBI agents for political reasons. Patel has also been in trouble for using public assets to ferry himself and his country music star girlfriend to entertainment venues. He’s regularly rumored to be close to being fired.

Patel was grilled on some of his decisions at a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Tuesday. He opened by recounting a barrage of purported FBI accomplishments in reducing violent crime and thwarting terrorism, many of which were exaggerations or falsehoods, featuring activities largely the terrain of other agencies, not the FBI. But the most attention went to his hilarious answer on the serious question of why the FBI had lowered its standards to recruit new agents, and no longer bars applicants who’ve engaged in prostitution, trafficking, or bestiality. The FBI, by many reports, has lowered other standards, at least partly because so many have either been fired, or left the agency on their own under Patel’s leadership.

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin opened by saying flatly that Patel should be replaced. He was the first to express bewilderment at the agency’s new welcome mat to applicants who’d “engaged in bestiality.” It was left to GOP Senator John Kennedy to drill down on the strange new regulation. When pushed, Katel insisted that “the previous regulation automatically disqualified any individual who participated in either side of it,” to which Kennedy asked what the entire audience had to be wondering: “Either side of bestiality? So you disqualified the animal?”

Kennedy went on: “You’re not saying that if a human being had sex with an animal, they can be an FBI agent?”

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

  • djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    6·
    7 hours ago

    Illinois Senator Dick Durbin opened by saying flatly that Patel should be replaced. He was the first to express bewilderment at the agency’s new welcome mat to applicants who’d “engaged in bestiality.”

    I don’t always love this guy but this was a great moment out of him.

  • LazyBaby@lemmy.zipEnglish
    462·
    7 hours ago

    Hahahahaha being an American citizen is so fuckin embarrassingn

    edit: why are there so many people who can’t seem to follow this relatively short conversation

    • Sanguine@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      15·
      1 day ago

      I’m not embarrassed I’m fucking angry.

      A lot of really kind people live here and without white washing our very valid and obvious flaws, we have also done a lot of really cool shit.

      These last 12 years have been exhausting.

        • Sanguine@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          2·
          2 hours ago

          Lol get lost. The last 12 have been particularly exhausting. Better? I’m not sharing my demographics to signal whether you can accept my take or not.

      • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        16 hours ago

        As much as I loathe the American empire and wish to make it burn, bleed, and die. There are still good folks across this shit heap who deserve better.

      • borkborkbork@piefed.socialEnglish
        4·
        24 hours ago

        anger is the right reaction. all that good work done by generations of humble, hard working people, trying to bend the arc of the moral universe and being stymied by fuckwits like litch mcconnell and trump.

        it’s fucking disgusting and we should be angry.

      • LazyBaby@lemmy.zipEnglish
        102·
        1 day ago

        Not really? I don’t think there are too many countries I’ve learned about where I was like “wow they never did anything wrong or embarrassing” throughout all of their history

        • borkborkbork@piefed.socialEnglish
          23·
          24 hours ago

          eh, yeah, but also… in a lot of ways the US like… speedruns shitty stuff. like regularly. abu ghraib, the Tuskegee experiment, mk ultra, cointelpro, the trail of tears, slavery, the KKK not being declared a terrorist org, confederate statues, iranian schoolkids killed because the dod used ai, like, every fucking few years there’s another absolutely heinous revelation bordering on madness and yet… the US keeps chuggin.

          • LazyBaby@lemmy.zipEnglish
            32·
            19 hours ago

            This strikes me as kind of whitewashing other countries. Like, we’ve never had a monarchy. Or conspired with Hitler. There’s not really a strong history of human sacrifice.

            • djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
              22·
              7 hours ago

              …you know there were actually good monarchies, right? your argument is “well at least we elected all the terrible people.”

              For a country at the age of the US, it’s pretty embarrassing to have committed more atrocities than any of its global peers, despite being a fraction of their age.

              • LazyBaby@lemmy.zipEnglish
                22·
                7 hours ago

                Hahahahahahaha

                Okay, you can have all of the “I HATE AMERICA THE MOST” internet points, I’ll concede to you, everything you said here was such good bait

            • borkborkbork@piefed.socialEnglish
              23·
              11 hours ago

              lol but what about -

              SHUT THE FUCK UP, I WAS TALKING ABOUT THE USA. Keep your whataboutism to yourself, and also, if you must whatabout, whatabout all the other countries that intentionally infected people with syphilis? because I don’t see that elsewhere. or drugging randos with LSD to create mind control.

              whitewashing, fuck off. for once just accept the fact that this country is very complex, it’s done some great things - but also a lot of wretchedly horrible things, and the more history you learn, the more wretchedly horrible things you come across.

              • LazyBaby@lemmy.zipEnglish
                22·
                9 hours ago

                What do you mean YOU were talking about the USA? I was talking about the USA, goober, you replied to me, not the other way. Take a breath, and a walk, and a chill pill, and then count backwards from ten.

                There’s this tendency to infantalize other countries when compared to the imperial juggernaut that is the USA. I get it, on some level, but it strikes me as super performative when you just refuse to also acknowledge that the US didn’t invent colonialism or slavery or that there are still places in the world girls can’t go to school. War and geeed and genocide are a human problem that predates the US and, unfortunately, will probably continue after it’s gone.

                So, when it comes to history, take the good with the bad. But that doesn’t change what I said about my country in the present, either.

                • borkborkbork@piefed.socialEnglish
                  22·
                  5 hours ago

                  “This strikes me as kind of whitewashing other countries. Like, we’ve never had a monarchy. Or conspired with Hitler. There’s not really a strong history of human sacrifice.”

                  this is straight whataboutism and if you don’t understand that, you’re brains are leaking you dolt.

  • Smeagol666@crazypeople.onlineEnglish
    102·
    1 day ago

    I’m fucking positive Papa Drumpf put him up to it. Anything to distract us from the Epstein files and his illegal war in Iran.

    This shit’s more ridiculous than an SNL skit inside of a South Park episode.

    • Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.caEnglish
      22·
      20 hours ago

      Not quite. Furries like to dress as animals but are still having sex with humans. A little odd, perhaps, but still perfectly legal and I wish them all happiness in their affairs even though it really doesn’t do it for me.

      Patel would be more accurately characterized as a “zoophile” who have actual sex with animals. This is illegal as ALL FUCK because the animal CANNOT CONSENT which, in my mind, is only one step away from being a fucking pedo. But what the hell… the latter are already welcome in the USA so might as well bring in all the other rapists.

      • TachyonTele_Esq@piefed.socialEnglish
        22·
        19 hours ago

        If you have to write a two paragraph explainer… Something is wrong.

        Though, you did get really close in the second paragraph. Your almost there.

    • rethnor@lemmy.zipEnglish
      1·
      3 hours ago

      Nope he certainly eats animals still. Just not in the same way most people do.