WASHINGTON (Diya TV) — FBI Director Kash Patel defended changes to the bureau’s hiring standards Tuesday after senators from both parties questioned why the FBI no longer automatically disqualifies certain applicants for past conduct involving bestiality, prostitution or theft from an employer.

Patel addressed the changes during a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing. He said the FBI revised its standards to prevent the bureau from automatically rejecting victims of trafficking or abuse.

“We did not want to punish victims of bestiality, victims who were trafficked,” Patel told Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. Patel said the FBI would still require applicants to complete its screening and hiring process.

Under the revised criteria, the FBI no longer automatically disqualifies applicants for bestiality or animal cruelty that occurred before age 18. The bureau also allows case-by-case consideration of some applicants with past prostitution-related conduct or theft from an employer.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., asked Patel whether the policy could allow someone who voluntarily engaged in bestiality to qualify for an FBI job. Patel said officials showed him cases involving people who had been forced into such acts and argued that the FBI should consider those circumstances.

However, the written standards do not restrict the bestiality exception to trafficking victims. The policy allows the FBI to consider applicants when the conduct occurred before they turned 18.

A day before the hearing, Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee asked Patel to provide records explaining the changes. Their Sept. 14 letter said the FBI had removed theft from an employer, sex solicitation and certain bestiality-related conduct from its list of automatic disqualifications.

The hearing also covered FBI staffing, investigations and security for the November midterm elections. Patel said the bureau plans to deploy agents and intelligence analysts in field offices to support election security.

The Judiciary Committee gave the FBI until Sept. 28 to provide records and additional information about the hiring changes.