FBI director Kash Patel told a Bureau official on Friday that he would like to send 1,000 agents from the Washington area to field offices around the country. I said.
Patel, who was newly sworn as director after being narrowly confirmed by the Senate, was widely expected to thin out headquarters and other offices in the Capitol area. However, the speed he moved to do so prompted concern over the disruption that could cause across the agency by being caught off guard.
His timeline for identifying staff to go to field offices and Huntsville, Alabama, was not immediately clear. Two former FBI officials familiar with the issue said agents would be sent to cities with high crime rates.
In a statement, the FBI said: He directed the FBI leadership to implement a plan that would lead this promise to action. ”
Last year, Patel promised to shake up the bureau in an interview last year, revealing his hostility towards the agency he saw as biased against conservatives.
“We closed the FBI Hoover building on the first day and reopened the following day as a 'Deep State' museum,” Patel said on the podcast, Shawn Ryan Shaw. “Then I'll take 7,000 employees who work in that building and send them America to chase criminals. Let's become cops. You're a cop – go to the cop going. .”
It is not clear how Patel reached his decision, but a group of former and current agents on his advisory team stocks the bureau's operations. In an email to the workforce Friday, Patel said it will “simplify operations at headquarters while strengthening the presence of field agents across the country.”
Patel is not the first director to try to reduce the rank of FBI agents.
In the 1990s, another FBI director, Louis Freeh, tried a similar approach. Shortly after becoming supervisor, he moved hundreds of agents and supervisors to the streets from desk jobs in the capital and other offices.
Even before Patel took office, the Justice Department ordered the forced retirement of several senior workers for unclear reasons, removing agents and personnel who had extensive experience in the bureau.
The support staff on the seventh floor of the headquarters were told to move to another floor, which includes the former superintendent's secretary, as the senior officials were seated. Patel shows his desire for a clean break from his former manager, Christopher A. Ray, who resigned before Trump took office.
At a Senate confirmation hearing, Patel tried to explain his pledge to dramatically overhaul the department. He said there are around 11,000 FBI employees out of the roughly 38,000 people working in the surrounding areas, such as the Capitol, where the department's training academy is based, and Quantico, Virginia. Quantico also has a critical incident response group that includes behavioral analysts, tactical teams, hostage negotiators and undercover agents.
“I will do it over and over again because Americans deserve resources elsewhere, not Washington, D.C.,” he told the senator last month.
Moving FBI employees is expensive and that would do so as President Trump prioritizes the cost-cutting initiative led by billionaire Elon Musk. The administration has already requested a list of probation employees. Among them, it unlocks the potential for rapid reductions across the agency, out of the roughly 1,000 agents the department has to justify its maintenance.
A former FBI official raised questions about where agents and support personnel should go and which field offices need resources.
“Where will he be put?” Chris Piechota, who retired as a senior FBI executive in 2020, said Patel must catalogue the program and bring together a leadership team before making such a big decision. I warned that it wouldn't.
“You need to get there and look behind the curtains,” he said. “He has a difficult balance to maintain between realignment and maintaining the operational effectiveness of the FBI.”
Shortly after being sworn in by Attorney General Pam Bondy, Patel expressed his distrust. “I don't fully believe it yet,” he said, adding that future criticism of the station is directed at him, not at ranks or files. “They're worth more,” he said.
