WASHINGTON — Typically, the FBI has turned to polygraph tests to sniff out employees who might have betrayed their country or shown they cannot be trusted with secrets.

Since Kash Patel took office as the director of the FBI, the bureau has significantly stepped up the use of the lie-detector test, at times subjecting personnel to a question as specific as whether they have cast aspersions on Patel himself.

In interviews and polygraph tests, the FBI has asked senior employees whether they have said anything negative about Patel, according to two people with knowledge of the questions and others familiar with similar accounts.

The use of the polygraph, and the nature of the questioning, is part of the FBI’s broader crackdown on news leaks, reflecting, to a degree, Patel’s acute awareness of how he is publicly portrayed. The moves, former bureau officials say, are politically charged and highly inappropriate, underscoring what they describe as an alarming quest for fealty at the FBI, where there is little tolerance for dissent. Disparaging Patel or his deputy, Dan Bongino, former officials say, could cost people their job.

“An FBI employee’s loyalty is to the Constitution, not to the director or deputy director,” said James Davidson, a former agent who spent 23 years in the bureau. “It says everything about Patel’s weak constitution that this is even on his radar.”

The FBI declined to comment, citing “personnel matters and internal deliberations.”