More than 10 percent of FBI agents stationed in the area surrounding the nation’s Capital are facing relocation to other American cities.
FBI Director Kash Patel said that moving 1,500 agents out of Washington, D.C. and its immediate suburbs will motivate more people to want to join his agency’s ranks.
He also said that the concentration of one-third of agents in the area has led to the increase in failure and decrease in trust.
‘The FBI is 38,000 when we’re fully manned, which we’re not,’ Patel told Fox News Sunday Morning Futures host Maria Bartiromo. ‘In the National Capital region, in the 50-mile radius around Washington, D.C., there were 11,000 FBI employees – that’s like a third of the workforce.’
‘A third of the crime doesn’t happen here,’ the FBI director lamented. ‘So we’re taking 1,500 of those folks and moving them out.’
It’s not clear where Patel is sending the workforce who are moving outside the District, but he alluded that they will be heading to cities where violent crime is prevalent – likely mostly Democrat enclaves.
He insisted that there is not a politically motivated action, but that his agents will be distributed in areas where they are needed most.
FBI Director Kash Patel said that at least 1,500 agents are being relocated out of the Washington, D.C. capital region to more high crime cities
Pael did specifically call out Memphis, Tennessee as the homicide capital of the U.S.
‘I didn’t know this until my confirmation process, but Memphis, Tennessee, is the homicide capital of America per capita – didn’t know that, we have a problem there. We’re now addressing it,’ Patel said.
‘We’re rolling out one of our task forces to Tennessee.’
He also said that Ohio has a roadway system where ‘trafficking is through the roof just because of the interstate.’
‘So you have to get out there in the field,’ he explained to Bartiromo. ‘Not just let the FBI agents and Intel folks get out there and do the work, but partner with state and local law enforcement, which is a priority, and tribal law enforcement.’
The overhaul comes after government-wide cuts the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s administration significantly reduced the federal workforce – including at the FBI.
Patel wants to make major changes that will increase Americans’ trust in the FBI after a years-long breakdown in confidence in the top law enforcement arm of the U.S. government.
He says this will include ‘aggressive congressional oversight’ and accountability for bad actors.
Patel said that one-third of his workforce is in the 50-miles radius of the Capitol region – and insisting that is changing
The director also said that his plan to move FBI agents across the country could result in more qualified Americans wanting to crack down on violent crime.
‘Every state’s getting a plus up,’ he insisted.
‘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 go work at the FBI because we want to go fight violent crime, and we want to get sent out into the country to do it.’
‘And that’s what we’re doing in the next three, six, nine months. We’re going to do that hard,’ Patel said in his joint interview alongside Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino.
The reorganization, Patel says, will hopefully lead to an increase in Americans’ trust in the FBI.
