BURSTFBI Director Kash Patel said Sunday the agency plans to "reorient" its assets in Washington by relocating them to field offices in other parts of the country.
“We’re going to reorient our assets in Washington. We’re going to look at it strategically, as we’ve been doing the last month, and send our agents and analysts and SOS operatives into the field to take on this violent crime explosion that has occurred over these last four or five years,” Patel said Sunday evening on Fox News.
“To make sure that every state and every county — be it in my hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada, or up in Montana or in Kansas or Iowa or Maine — is all safe and secure," he added
Last month, Patel informed managers at the FBI that 1,500 personnel would be transferred from the Washington headquarters to offices around the country, including around one-third being placed in an Alabama office.
FBI staff members were reportedly told during a meeting that about 1,000 personnel and agents would be dispatched into offices nationwide, including 500 in the agency’s Huntsville, Ala., campus.
Patel said the reorganization “will include streamlining our operations at headquarters while bolstering the presence of field agents across the nation."
Patel, among President Trump's most controversial agency heads, was confirmed with a 51-49 vote in the Senate last month. A former Department of Justice prosecutor who also served during Trump's first term, Patel gained much of his fame spreading right-wing conspiracies.
Trump's return to the White House had shaken up the agency even before Patel was sworn in.
During the first month of President Trump’s second term, at least 75 career FBI officials and Department of Justice lawyers were reportedly fired, resigned or stripped of their positions.
The Hill reached out to the FBI for comment.