Patel defends not disqualifying bestiality from FBI hiring, then asks Senate to trust his word on election files

…(cont) The senators did not let it sit there. Democrats on the panel pressed him on drinking on the job and on what the New York Post's hearing notes called frat-boy behavior, on whether the bureau he runs still resembles the one Congress built; the exchanges got loud enough that "shut up" made the wire copy. That is a description of the room, not a charge against a person, and the room was Patel's to answer for.

Then Sen. Peter Welch asked him something simpler: does Patel agree the 2020 election was rigged, the way the president has said it was, again, this month. Patel did not say yes and did not say no. He said there are ongoing investigations into the matter and he would not comment on it — under oath, about an election five years finished, before the committee that oversees him.

Later, under questioning from Sen. Mike Lee, Patel said the FBI's review of the devices belonging to Thomas Crooks, the man who tried to kill Donald Trump, found no evidence Crooks spoke to anyone but his parents. He offered that finding flat, no hedge. And asked whether his bureau plans to seize election-related materials, he said no — the bureau has no plans to seize election-related materials.

Add it up and the hearing was not a scandal in the tabloid sense. It was one man defending, in sequence, a lowered bar for hiring, a policy that stops short of disqualifying bestiality, a non-answer about the last election, and a flat denial about the next one — each claim sound the moment before he said it, and stranger the moment after, because the next claim was sitting right behind it, under the same oath, in the same chair.