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FBI Director Kash Patel said Friday that the bureau’s J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C., will be shut down permanently, reversing earlier plans to relocate the agency’s headquarters to Maryland. Instead, FBI employees will move into the Ronald Reagan Building, which previously housed the U.S. Agency for International Development before it was dismantled by the Trump administration earlier this year, The New York Post reported.
“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,” Patel wrote in a post on the social platform X.
“Working directly with President Trump and Congress, we accomplished what no one else could,” he added.
“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,” Patel said.
“This decision puts resources where they belong: defending the homeland, crushing violent crime, and protecting national security,” he said.
“It delivers better tools for today’s FBI workforce at a fraction of the cost,” Patel added.
“The Hoover Building will be shut down permanently,” he said.
Earlier this year, Fox News Digital exclusively obtained a memo Patel sent to FBI employees notifying them of the relocation and emphasizing that the move represents the “most cost effective way” to serve the American people.
Patel first signaled the shift in May, when he indicated the bureau would begin reallocating its workforce across the country and moving agents out of the Hoover Building, which opened in 1975.
The FBI and the General Services Administration had been evaluating options for a new headquarters for more than a decade, including sites near Washington in Maryland and Virginia.
Maryland lawmakers have sharply criticized the decision, citing congressional approval granted during the Biden administration for a new consolidated headquarters campus in their state.
“Not only was this decision final, the Congress appropriated funds specifically for the purpose of the new, consolidated campus to be built in Maryland,” Democratic members of Maryland’s congressional delegation said in a July statement.
“Now the Administration is attempting to redirect those funds, both undermining Congressional intent and dealing a blow to the men and women of the FBI, since we know that a headquarters located within the District would not satisfy their security needs,” the statement continued.
Last month, Maryland filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration alleging it improperly diverted $555 million in funding after announcing a sudden change following a multiyear bidding process.
“These actions flouted Congress’s explicit direction to choose a site from the three specified sites, as well as other specific statutory directives concerning the selection of the site and the use of the funds,” the lawsuit states.
FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino announced Dec. 17 that he will leave the bureau in January after less than a year as the agency’s second-in-command. Bongino’s departure follows reported internal conflict with Attorney General Pam Bondi over the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigative files.
MS NOW reported that Bongino had been telling associates he planned to leave early next year and had begun clearing out his office, USA Today reported.
In a post on X, Bongino thanked Trump, Bondi, and FBI Director Kash Patel for what he called the opportunity to serve.
“Most importantly, I want to thank you, my fellow Americans, for the privilege to serve you,” Bongino wrote.
