The FBI said it thwarted a "mass casualty attack," inspired by ISIS, allegedly by a 21-year-old man in Pennsylvania. Agents allegedly tracked the young man to a hotel where they arrested him. It's the second ISIS-related plot to surface since August.
Page A2From§Eachthe midnight edition — 16 September 2026
FBI defends lowered hiring bar under oath, then cites a thwarted ISIS plot as proof it works
As it ran on the front
On September 9, the Senate Judiciary Committee announced its next witness would be the man who runs the Federal Bureau of Investigation. On Tuesday, September 15, he showed up, and for nearly five hours — the length the committee held him — FBI Director Kash Patel defended nearly everything a hearing can force a man to defend.
He started with hiring. Patel confirmed the bureau had lowered its standards, then defended the change as policy — the kind of sentence that sounds fine until Sen. John Kennedy asked what, exactly, the standards no longer automatically cover. What they no longer automatically cover is bestiality. A person who has had sex with an animal is not automatically disqualified from working at the FBI under the policy Patel was defending that day. The same waiver language covers whatever else got folded in with it — how many hires, how many convictions, the hearing did not stay long enough to count.…
…(cont) Then came the election materials. Patel denied any plan to seize them — denied it flatly, denied it the way a man denies something he's been asked before, because he has, the same denial sitting next to his own record on the 2020 count. Then came the shooter. Patel told the committee there is no evidence Trump's would-be assassin spoke to anyone but their parents. No evidence yet is not the same sentence as no contact, and Patel picked the first one. Or he didn't pick it — it's just the true one, which is worse.
One policy defended, two denials, one hearing. That was Tuesday, September 15.
It was also the day his own bureau put out its rebuttal. The FBI announced that same Tuesday it had stopped what officials called a "mass casualty attack," ISIS-inspired, in Pennsylvania — a 21-year-old man tracked to a hotel and arrested before he could carry it out. Federal officials named him: Jonathan Kramer, armed, they said, for an attack against the American people. It was the second ISIS-related plot to surface since August. Not the second this year. Since August.
Today brought more of the file — the arrest run back in detail, the timeline filled in. None of it moved the date. The bureau's proof that the lowered bar still catches what matters arrived the same day the director stood up and asked the Senate to trust that it would.
“They spend five hours on whether a guy who's had sex with an animal still clears the bar for an FBI badge, then two days later drop a foiled bombing on the table like it settles it. That's the whole con: lower the bar, then hold up the one catch you got as proof the bar's fine. The next hire that doesn't get flagged is the one you find out about after it's already a headline.”
“Look, "lowered standards" is a loaded way to put it — the Director called it a modernized disqualification framework, under oath, and I stand by that. And sure, technically an animal-related conviction isn't an automatic disqualifier anymore, but that's not the same as saying we're hiring people who — okay, that is exactly what it's saying. Forget I said modernized.”
Earlier in this story
- Patel defends not disqualifying bestiality from FBI hiring, then asks Senate to trust his word on election files By Chip · the early evening edition, 15 September 2026
The receipts
A 21-year-old Pennsylvania man has been arrested for allegedly plotting what could have been a "mass casualty attack" inspired by ISIS, federal officials say. CBS News' Anna Schecter has more.
Federal officials said Jonathan Kramer had armed himself to carry out a mass casualty attack against the American people.
The DOJ disbanded its crypto enforcement team in April 2025 and ordered inconsistent investigations closed - while the president's family runs a crypto business CNBC, 8 April 2025 (Blanche memo)
Patel pushed on lower hiring standards at FBI, Olympic celebrationFBI Director Kash Patel was grilled for nearly five hours by both Democrats and Republicans about a string of recent negative headlines about the FBI.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.