Sunday, during an appearance on Fox News Channel's "Sunday Morning Futures," FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino discussed decentralizing the FBI by moving resources out of the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C.
President Donald Trump proposed moving agents out of the D.C. headquarters during his 2024 presidential campaign.
Patel said he expected to move 1,500 employees out of Washington, D.C. One of the locations, Patel said, was Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, which he described as "one of the crown jewels of the FBI."
"He's a man of his word," Bongino said. "I mean, he said that he was interested in shutting down Hoover. And I don't think people took him seriously, and it's been two months. And I think it's good that he broke it on your show, because me and him were on the tour yesterday of an alternate facility, where -- the building we're looking at. And everyone was taking pictures, and they knew something was up because me and him were there. So that's good you guys got it first. But Kash could have made a pretty easy decision, which is go up to Congress and say, hey, you know what, we're going to go back and ask for this billion-dollar new facility. And you know what he said? He said, go find this a place already up and running. We can go in. We're going to need some upgrades, SCIFs where we can talk, safes, that kind of thing, obviously some security upgrades in the front. We are saving the taxpayer a fortune."
"So you're going to move 1,000 employees from Washington to field offices across the country?" host Maria Bartiromo asked.
Patel replied, "Fifteen hundred."
"Fifteen hundred?" Bartiromo said.
"We already launched that plan," Patel said.
"Are they going to Alabama?" Bartiromo asked.
"Well, so, Redstone Arsenal is one of the crown jewels of the FBI," Patel replied. "And it's on a military campus of 38,000 acres in Huntsville, Alabama. And the FBI built five new buildings there and a kinetic cyber training facility, a long-range facility. Our terrorism explosive device center is there. So when you go and you want to become a new FBI agent, we send you to Quantico. When you're in the job for a couple of years and you need advanced training, you go to Huntsville. And because we have had new buildings and new structures already there, we need our outdated facilities and personnel to move to Huntsville, where the training has been set up for them, and fill those seats. We don't need to build new buildings elsewhere. So, a chunk of them are going there because it's essentially headquarters, too, for lack of a better word. But the rest of the folks, we have looked at the map. And we said, where are the worst crime spots in America? That's how we're choosing where the agents and intel folks go."
He continued, "Then, our leaders in the field are working with state, local and tribal leaders to say, hey, we have got a serious problem on Navajo, or we have got a big deal going on outside of Chicago. Those agents and intel analysts are going there, at their direction, based on ground-level intelligence. You want to make your promotions, go make cases in the field, and you're getting promoted under this leadership structure. You don't have to come to Washington. One of the biggest cost-saving things we did was, we ended this TDY boondoggle to D.C. that has been institutionalized by prior leadership, mandating you come here. And here's the kicker. Not only do you get your salary. You get a per diem TDY for your entire 18-month tour. That's over."
Jeff Poor is the editor-in-chief of 1819 News and host of "The Jeff Poor Show," heard Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-noon on Mobile's FM Talk 106.5. To connect or comment, email [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @jeff_poor.
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