On Friday, FBI Director Kash Patel took to X to announce the official shuttering of the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Headquarters building. Patel first made this announcement in May during an interview on Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures program with Maria Bartiromo. Since Congress holds the power of the purse to designate what happens with federal buildings, Patel cleared the proper channels in order to finally execute his plan.
December 26: Shutting down the Hoover Building.
After more than 20 years of failed attempts, we finalized a plan to permanently close the FBI’s Hoover headquarters and move the workforce into a safe, modern facility. Working directly with President Trump and Congress, we accomplished what no one else could.
When we arrived, taxpayers were about to be on the hook for nearly $5 billion for a new headquarters that wouldn’t open until 2035. We scrapped that plan. Instead, we selected the already-existing Reagan Building, saving billions and allowing the transition to begin immediately with required safety and infrastructure upgrades already underway. Once complete, most of the HQ FBI workforce will move in, and the rest are continuing in our ongoing push to put more manpower in the field, where they will remain.
This decision puts resources where they belong: defending the homeland, crushing violent crime, and protecting national security. It delivers better tools for today’s FBI workforce at a fraction of the cost.
The Hoover Building will be shut down permanently.
The Hoover Building has been a money-suck since its inception. Original construction was planned to be set in 1963 for an estimated $60 million. The construction wasn't completed until over 10 years later, to the tune of $126 million. The closure of this headquarters fulfills Patel's promise of a new FBI that would be transparent, accountable, and focus on letting cops be cops. With a more streamlined D.C. workforce, this means that along with agents being launched back into field work, state and regional headquarters will now be more fully staffed. The benefit of this has become evident with the trafficking arrests, narcotics busts, and thwarting of mass casualty terror plots in Michigan and California.
My colleague streiff wrote after Patel's confirmation as FBI Director.
During his confirmation hearing, he reiterated his goal of getting agents and analysts out of DC and into field offices.
During his confirmation hearing last month, Patel was asked about his previous comments suggesting he wanted the FBI’s headquarters emptied out and shuttered. His responses did not directly address whether he would actually shut the building down or seek to transform it into a museum, but suggested that he believes the FBI’s workforce in Washington should go out into the country.
“A third of the workforce for the FBI works in Washington, D.C.,” Patel said. “I am fully committed to having that workforce go out into the interior of the country, where I live west of the Mississippi, and work with sheriff’s departments and local officers.”
Some of those agents are on temporary duty to DC and will return to their home offices. You can also bet that a non-trivial number of those ordered out of the building will retire rather than move.
Good riddance. In May, Patel also signaled plans to increase personnel to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, AL. In a Senate oversight hearing, Patel committed to Alabama Sen. Katie Britt (R) that these plans were already being implemented.
WATCH:
In mid-December, the FBI's Deputy Assistant Director for IT Infrastructure, Kevin Jones, updated elected leaders and personnel at Redstone Arsenal. Jones said there are 2,200 FBI personnel already stationed at the facility — 500 of that number are agents who were moved from D.C. to the South. The FBI plans to expand that number to 4,000 by 2030.
Jones said the Huntsville facility will create one of the largest concentrated footprints of any FBI division in the United States. Personnel will work at the Richard Shelby Center for Innovation and Advanced Technology, the new name for the FBI’s official campus on Redstone Arsenal.
Workers will initially be stationed at the North Campus of the FBI building. That building houses the FBI’s technology, cyber, analytics and instructional environments.
These actions represent the return of the bureau back to enforcing laws, fighting crime, and making communities in the nation safer. Here's hoping under Patel's continued leadership of the FBI that we see a vastly different agency in the coming years.