FBI Director Kash Patel defended on Tuesday (September 16, 2026) a recent policy change to allow some applicants who have engaged in prostitution and bestiality to be considered for employment, insisting that the move was made to enable victims of those acts to apply for a job without fear of automatic disqualification.

The subject arose during a fiery Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in which Mr. Patel clashed with Democrats over his firing of agents who participated in investigations of President Donald Trump and suggested that agents might be dispatched to the polls on Election Day amid Justice Department and White House concerns about voter fraud.

The hours-long hearing featured the name-calling and bitingly personal exchanges that have come to define Mr. Patel’s appearances on Capitol Hill, with Democrats characterising the Trump appointee as unqualified, criticising him for politically charged investigations into Mr. Trump’s enemies and highlighting travel that has included a trip to the Winter Olympics in Italy in which he partied with U.S. hockey players and a snorkeling excursion at the Pearl Harbor memorial in Hawaii.

“He’s an incompetent lackey. He’s like an 18-year old-kid who wants to join a fraternity that he could never be a member of, doing keg stands and chugging with friends. He’s an embarrassment to the agency and wouldn’t qualify even to be an FBI agent,” said an exasperated Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, his voice rising in anger.

“What a mockery you are,” he added.

Mr. Patel shot back, “You are the biggest mockery in the United States Senate, and you’re sitting next to Schiff.” That was a reference to Sen. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat and outspoken Patel critic.

Patel pressed on the FBI’s hiring standards

The FBI quietly issued guidance this past spring lifting a categorical hiring restriction on applicants who had previously participated in prostitution. The bureau made a similar change with regard to childhood experience in bestiality.

Under questioning, Mr. Patel denied that the changes reflected a lowering of employment standards and insisted they were designed to prevent victims who’d been forced to engage in that conduct from being automatically disqualified.

“We did not want to punish victims of bestiality, victims who were trafficked. We did not want to make it an automatic disqualification for the FBI to consider you if you were a victim of these awful, heinous acts,” Mr. Patel said. “We are not going to target victims and prevent them from serving in their capacity to serve this country.” The questioning spanned partisan lines, with Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana grilling Patel about the rationale for a change that the FBI director said was proposed to him by subordinates.

“When you saw bestiality, I say this with respect: The person who recommended it, why didn’t you just say what planet did you parachute in from?” Sen. Kennedy asked.

Mr. Patel conceded that was his initial response, but “they then explained to me and showed me cases in which people were forced into it and applied to the FBI and so I thought they should be considered. It’s not an automatic disqualification.”

The Associated Press reported last month that the FBI still intends to bar some applicants who are revealed to have previously engaged in prostitution, including if they’ve done so within the last 10 years.

Patel did not rule out sending agents to polling places on Election Day

The hearing took place two months before the midterm elections in November and at a time when the FBI has opened investigations related to the 2020 contest, including by seizing voter data in Fulton County, Georgia.

Mr. Trump regularly makes false claims that elections are rigged and riddled with fraud, especially in the months before an election. But there is no widespread fraud in American elections. Local election officials have detailed processes for auditing the accuracy of the vote after ballots are tallied.

Even as he disputed his loss in 2020, audits, reviews and recounts in the battleground states where he challenged the outcome all affirmed Democrat Joe Biden’s win.

Those voter fraud claims, and the FBI’s efforts to investigate the 2020 race, have spurred Democratic concerns that Patel could plunge the bureau into the upcoming election.

Asked whether the FBI has the general authority to monitor elections, Mr. Patel replied that responsibility rests with the Department of Homeland Security. He said the FBI’s presence on Election Day will be “housed” with election crimes coordinators at each of the bureau’s 56 field offices, but under questioning, he declined to rule out that agents would be dispatched to the polls in the event of problems or reports of interference.

“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?” asked Democratic Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont in one of the hearing’s more combative exchanges.

“I pledge unequivocally that I will not participate in your charade of lies,” Patel said, later calling Welch a “total fraud.” FBI firings were also a featured topic of the hearing Patel repeatedly touted what he asserted was his record-breaking success at the FBI, proclaiming the “most prolific reduction in crime in U.S. history” even though violent crime rates in American cities had begun dropping well before Mr. Trump took office last year for reasons that are difficult to pinpoint.

Kash Patel: The die-hard loyalist 

Democrats seize on the tumult inside the FBI

Even as the Republican-led panel tried through its questioning to keep the focus on Mr. Patel’s crime-fighting efforts from his perch at the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency, Democrats seized on the tumult inside the FBI over the last year — including sweeping firings of agents who participated in investigations of Mr. Trump, the bureau’s aggressive efforts to investigate media leaks by serving subpoenas at reporters’ homes and Patel’s travel schedule that has blended private leisure with professional responsibilities.

Democrat Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut pressed Mr. Patel on the firing of national security agents with expertise in Iran shortly before the U.S. launched attacks on the country last February. He noted that the agents had participated in an FBI investigation into Trump over his retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

“Do you think firing the president’s political opponents is more important than retaining the decades of experience and expertise monitoring intelligence threats from Iran?” Mr. Blumenthal asked.

“I think what’s most important is to not have a weaponized FBI, and I will endeavor every single day to make sure we have no one there that is doing that,” Mr. Patel responded. He did not say why their participation in the Mar-a-Lago investigation represented “weaponized” law enforcement.

Mr. Patel later suggested that the scope of firings had been overblown, saying many agents had retired on their own. And he defended his personal travels by pointing to numbers that he said showed that two recent predecessors, Chris Wray and James Comey, had traveled more.

Published – September 16, 2026 03:53 am IST

New Orleans:

Senior US law enforcement officials on Wednesday (local time) identified the main suspect in the New Orleans car-ramming incident as 42-year-old Shamsud Din Jabbar and confirmed that he was carrying an ISIS flag while carrying out the ‘act of terrorism.’

Police also discovered multiple suspected explosive devices in the car used in the attack on Bourbon Street, CNN reported. Jabbar was shot and killed by officers at the scene, as confirmed by New Orleans police.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) identified Shamsud Din Jabbar as a US citizen from Texas. Officials also stated that he had previously served in the US Military, according to CNN.

The FBI, which is leading the investigation, has classified the incident as “an act of terrorism.”

In a statement on X, the FBI wrote,”This morning, an individual drove a car into a crowd of people on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing a number of people and injuring dozens of others. The subject then engaged with local law enforcement and is now deceased. The FBI is the lead investigative agency, and we are working with our partners to investigate this as an act of terrorism.”

Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden, in a statement released by the White House, has condemned the attack saying, “There is no justification for violence of any kind, and we will not tolerate any attack on any of our nation’s communities.”

President Biden said that he is being continually briefed since early morning by the American federal law enforcement leadership and the homeland security team, which includes the Secretary of Homeland Security Ali Mayorkas, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, White House Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall, and the Mayor of New Orleans regarding the horrific incident that occurred.

He added, “I will continue to receive updates throughout the day, and I will have more to say as we have further information to share. In the meantime, my heart goes out to the victims and their families who were simply trying to celebrate the holiday.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Investigators in New Orleans on Wednesday found two homemade bombs in the wake of a deadly truck attack.

President-elect Donald Trump has called out President Biden and the Pentagon, accusing them of withholding information about the mysterious drones that have been spotted hovering over New Jersey and New York. Trump’s concerns come as the sightings have left many wondering about the origin and purpose of these drones.

“The government knows what is happening. Look, our military knows where they took off from — if it’s a garage, they can go right into that garage. They know where it came from and where it went, and for some reason, they don’t want to comment,” Trump said during a press conference in Palm Beach.

“And I think they’d be better off saying what it is. Our military knows and our president knows. And for some reason, they want to keep people in suspense,” he added. 

However, Trump sidestepped a question about whether he’d personally received an intelligence briefing on the mysterious drones spotted over New Jersey and New York. When asked, he refused to comment, leaving many wondering if he’s been privy to any classified information about the drones. The president-elect also said that he doubted that the drones were the work of a foreign enemy.

“If it was the enemy they’d blast it out. Even if they were late, they’d blast it. Something strange is going on. For some reason, they don’t want to tell the people, and they should,” he said. 

Trump also recently mentioned that his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, was one of the locations where mysterious drones were spotted. Due to these sightings, he decided to cancel his upcoming trip to Bedminster.

In recent weeks, residents of New Jersey have reported numerous sightings of unidentified drones hovering over suburban neighbourhoods, industrial areas, and even sensitive locations. The unusual activity has sparked widespread speculation and concern and prompted lawmakers to demand the Biden administration explain what was behind the mysterious sightings. US officials have said that most of the sightings involve manned aircraft and that there is no evidence of any threat to public safety or national security. 

At a Pentagon briefing before Trump’s news conference began, Air Force Major General Pat Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, told reporters there was “no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or public safety threat, or have a foreign nexus.”

Meanwhile, White House spokesman John Kirby recently stated that despite using sophisticated electronic detection technologies, federal officials, along with state and local law enforcement authorities, have been unable to corroborate any of the reported visual drone sightings over New Jersey. Instead, many of these sightings have been attributed to the misidentification of regular aircraft, such as airliners and helicopters, as drones.

Washington:

US President-elect Donald Trump has called for the “shooting down” of the mystery drones that have been appearing in various parts of the country.

These drones were first spotted in New Jersey a few days ago and are now being seen in other areas as well.

The federal government and the White House have so far maintained that these do not pose any national security threat and nor there is any evidence of a foreign hand in it. The appearance of the mystery drones, however, continues to be the subject of investigation.

“Mystery Drone sightings all over the Country. Can this really be happening without our government’s knowledge? I don’t think so,” Trump said on Friday in a post on Truth Social, a social media platform owned by him.

“Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shoot them down!!! DJT,” he said with his personal signature at the end of the post.

The White House on Thursday said there was no evidence yet that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or a public safety threat or that they have a foreign nexus.

The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are investigating these sightings, working closely with state and local law enforcement to provide resources, using numerous detection methods to better understand their origin, White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby told reporters.

He added that “… upon review of available imagery, it appears that many of the reported sightings are actually manned aircraft that are being operated lawfully.” “The United States Coast Guard is providing support to the State of New Jersey and has confirmed that there is no evidence of any foreign-based involvement from coastal vessels. And, importantly, there are no reported or confirmed drone sightings in any restricted airspace,” Kirby said.

In a joint statement, the Department of Homeland Security and FBI also said that there was no evidence yet that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or a public safety threat or have a foreign nexus.

“We are supporting local law enforcement in New Jersey with numerous detection methods but have not corroborated any of the reported visual sightings with electronic detection. To the contrary, upon review of available imagery, it appears that many of the reported sightings are actually manned aircraft, operating lawfully. There are no reported or confirmed drone sightings in any restricted air space,” the statement read.

In a letter to the DHS, FBI and the Federal Aviation Administration, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim said that “since late November, communities in the New York City area and northern New Jersey have reported several incidents of unattributable drone sightings at night, alarming both residents and local law enforcement”.

They highlighted that “the potential safety and security risks posed by these drones in civilian areas is especially pertinent considering recent drone incursions at sensitive military sites in and outside of the continental United States over the past year”.

Congressman Josh Gottheimer from New Jersey on Friday urged federal law enforcement agencies, led by the FBI and DHS, to allow state and local law enforcement to deploy assets that can safely take down drones that “should not be in our skies”.

He wrote a letter to the FBI, DHS and the FAA, asking them to immediately brief the public.

“They also need to work closely with state and local law enforcement to give them the equipment they need to monitor drone activity. There is clearly too much of it here in Jersey and other parts of the country,” Gottheimer said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington, United States:

Undercover FBI agents were not present during the 2021 attack on the US Capitol by Donald Trump supporters, a Justice Department watchdog said Thursday in a report debunking a popular right-wing conspiracy theory.

“We found no evidence in the materials we reviewed or the testimony we received showing or suggesting that the FBI had undercover employees in the various protest crowds, or at the Capitol, on January 6,” Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz said in an 88-page report.

Thousands of Trump supporters rushed in the US Capitol on January 6 in a bid to prevent congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory.

Right-wing media and even some Republican lawmakers have spuriously claimed that undercover FBI agents provoked the attack on Congress, which followed a fiery speech by Trump in which he falsely claimed the election had been stolen.

The inspector general said that while no undercover FBI agents were present at the Trump rally or the Capitol, 26 FBI informants known as confidential human sources (CHS) were in Washington at the time.

Three of the informants had been tasked with reporting on domestic terrorist suspects while the others were there on their own.

“None of these FBI CHSs were authorized to enter the Capitol or a restricted area, or to otherwise break the law on January 6, nor was any CHS directed by the FBI to encourage others to commit illegal acts on January 6,” the report said.

The inspector general also said there had been an intelligence-gathering failure by the FBI ahead of the January 6 attack.

“While the FBI undertook significant efforts to identify domestic terrorism subjects who planned to travel to the Capital region on January 6,” the report said, “the FBI did not take a step that could have helped the FBI and its law enforcement partners with their preparations. 

“Specifically, the FBI did not canvass its field offices in advance of January 6, 2021, to identify any intelligence, including CHS reporting, about potential threats to the January 6 Electoral Certification,” it said.

FBI deputy director Paul Abbate was quoted as saying this was a “basic step that was missed” in “understanding the threat picture prior to January 6.”

Trump was impeached by the Democratic-majority House of Representatives following the attack on the Capitol, but acquitted by the Senate.

He is to return to the White House on January 20 after defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in the November presidential election.

More than 1,500 people have been charged in connection with the assault on Congress. Trump has lauded them as “patriots” and “political prisoners” and pledged to pardon many of them when he returns to the White House.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

In recent weeks, residents of New Jersey have reported numerous sightings of unidentified drones hovering over suburban neighbourhoods, industrial areas, and even sensitive locations. The unusual activity has sparked widespread speculation and concern, leading security experts to weigh in with a startling theory about who may be behind these mysterious drones and their possible purpose. Several experts have suggested that the mysterious flights might be linked to a secret US government operation, possibly a top-secret military program. This program could be designed to test and refine cutting-edge technology before deploying it in actual combat situations, New York Post reported. 

“My first guess is these are potentially government programs kept within what’s known as a ‘Special Access Program,’ which is purposely put together to keep even the most cleared people out — it truly is to keep it secret,” said Clint Emerson, a retired Navy SEAL and owner of security company Escape the Wolf.

“That’s why the government’s like, ‘We don’t know.’ They’re being truthful. They don’t even know the program exists,” Mr Emerson added.

He believes that the true secret of drones lies not in the devices themselves, but in the advanced technology they carry. This could include various types of sensors and collection capabilities, such as high-definition cameras, infrared cameras, or thermal imaging devices. Additionally, the drones may be equipped with hardware that can capture cellphone data from a specific area.

“How much data can we collect with this? Let’s say we got 10 drones, they fly in a grid, how much cellphone traffic can we pick up? Not actual conversations. But just the signature of millions of cellphones. What can 10 drones pick up going over an area? That’s a legitimate test. They’re not invading your privacy. That’s legitimate data. And that’s a f–king capability,” he said.

New Jersey, being the most densely populated state in the country, provides an ideal location for testing such technology, offering a unique environment to gauge its effectiveness in a crowded and complex setting.

Kelly McCann, a security expert with a background in the Marines and Office of Naval Research, also agreed with Mr Emerson’s views. He believes the government is testing its “operational capacity”.  enhance its operational capabilities.

The FBI, along with local law enforcement and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), is currently investigating the incidents. 

Indian-American Kashyap “Kash” Patel, who has been nominated as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director by US President-elect Donald Trump, on Sunday joined social media platform X, which was previously known as Twitter.

“Hello X,” he said in his first post, which has so far received more than seven million views and 24,000 comments.

Hello @X

— Kash Patel (@Kash_Patel) December 1, 2024

Billionaire and X owner Elon Musk, who has been named Trump’s government efficiency chief in the incoming US administration, also congratulated Patel on being nominated to run the FBI.

Congratulations on being nominated to run the @FBI!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 1, 2024

Kash Patel, a former Republican House staffer and a fierce critic of the FBI, was followed by more than three lakh people within hours of joining the social media platform.

He was born in New York in 1980 to parents of Gujarati descent who emigrated from East Africa. Patel completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Richmond before returning to New York to earn his law degree and a certificate in International Law from the University College London Faculty of Laws in the United Kingdom.

After earning his law degree, the 44-year-old worked as a public defender in Florida, representing clients in state and federal courts. He later joined the Department of Justice as a prosecutor, handling high-profile international terrorism cases across East Africa and the United States.

He frequently appeared on the campaign trail to rally support for Donald Trump in his presidential bid against Democrat Kamala Harris.

During Trump’s first term, he advised both the director of national intelligence and the defense secretary.

US President-elect Donald Trump nominated his loyalist Kashyap ‘Kash’ Patel to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Saturday. Making the announcement, the 78-year-old President-elect called Mr Patel an “America First fighter”.

Reports have been flooding in of Black people across the United States receiving disturbing text messages referencing slavery and “picking cotton”, following Donald Trump’s presidential election win. These racist messages have been reported in over a dozen states, including California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia, and Alabama, as per CNN. The messages, sent anonymously, instructed recipients to report to a “plantation” or board a bus, sparking widespread alarm and prompting investigations by the FBI and other agencies.

The messages often instruct recipients to report to a specific address, sometimes mentioning the incoming presidential administration. Some even target children, with reports of middle school students receiving these hateful messages. For instance, a 16-year-old girl in California received a text directing her to report to a “plantation” in North Carolina.

A friend in San Francisco received this racist text today, and after looking on social media, it seems many Black people are receiving it too. pic.twitter.com/eDyFf3a6Ix

— John Ryan E (@RyanElward) November 7, 2024

The FBI is working with the Justice Department to address these incidents, while the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is investigating alongside federal and state law enforcement. TextNow, the platform through which some of these messages were sent, told CNN this is a “widespread, coordinated attack”. 

FBI Statement on Offensive and Racist Text Messageshttps://t.co/vpQYAO6LT7 pic.twitter.com/iDtN36WhX4

— FBI (@FBI) November 7, 2024

”TextNow is working alongside our industry partners to uncover more details and continue to monitor patterns to actively block any new accounts attempting to send these messages. We do not tolerate or condone the use of our service to send harassing or spam messages and will work with the authorities to prevent these individuals from doing so in the future,” the company said. 

Civil rights organisations, including NAACP, one of the largest Black civil rights organisations in the US, have condemned these messages. The Southern Poverty Law Center has also weighed in, calling the messages “deeply disturbing” 

”We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – there is no place for hate in a democracy. The threat — and the mention of slavery in 2024 — is not only deeply disturbing, but perpetuates a legacy of evil that dates back to before the Jim Crow era, and now seeks to prevent Black Americans from enjoying the same freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness,” NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said in a press release. 

Whoever is sending the racist text messages is using anonymizing software to obscure their location, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill told CNN on Friday.