WASHINGTON, D.C.— The FBI intends to vacate the Bureau’s historic headquarters at the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C. according to DOJ sources who spoke to Law Enforcement Today owner Kyle Reyes this week. This information was later confirmed by FBI Director Kash Patel in an interview with Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo scheduled to air on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” and posted to X Friday.
In the interview, alongside Deputy Director Dan Bongino, Patel joked that he hadn’t planned to reveal the move yet, but proceeded to explain that 1,500 FBI employees working in D.C. would be transferred to offices throughout the country and the FBI would be leaving the building.
He explained, “This FBI is leaving the Hoover Building because this building is unsafe for our workforce.” He added, “We want the American men and women to know if you’re going to come work at the premier law enforcement agency in the world, we’re going to give you a building that’s commensurate with that, and that’s not this place,” according to The New York Post.
Bongino mused that Patel was “giving up a big nugget” by breaking the news on Bartiromo’s show.
“Look, the FBI is 38,000 when we are fully manned, which we are not. In the national capital region, in the 50-mile radius around Washington, DC, there were 11,000 FBI employees. That’s like a third of the workforce. A third of the crime doesn’t happen here,” Patel continued.
“So we are taking 1,500 of those folks and moving them out. Every state is getting a plus-up [an increase in manpower]. And I think when we do things like that, we inspire folks in America to become intel analysts and agents and say ‘We want to work at the FBI because we want to fight violent crime and we want to be sent out into the country to do it.’”
He concluded: “In the next three, six, nine months, we’re going to be doing that hard.”
As noted by Bartiromo and WTOP, the FBI announced plans in November to relocate the Bureau’s headquarters to Greenbelt, Maryland. However, in remarks earlier this year, President Donald Trump had said he planned to halt that move.
Bartiromo reported that President Trump plans to cut the FBI annual budget by $500 million making “the former leadership’s plans to build a new headquarters from scratch is out. As the new leadership team is now looking to do more with less and return the FBI to its core mission of fighting crime, and getting out of politics.”
