FBI Director Kash Patel says FBI leaving longtime headquarters

FBI Director Kash Patel previewed his plans to relocate about 1,500 agents out of the law enforcement agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C.

In an excerpt of an exclusive interview with "Sunday Morning Futures" that will air this Sunday, Patel said the agency is reallocating its workforce around the country by moving those agents out of the J. Edgar Hoover Building, which opened in 1975.

"This FBI is leaving the Hoover building because this building is unsafe for our workforce and we want… the American men and women to know, if you're going to come work at the premier law enforcement agency in the world, we're going to give you a building that's commensurate with that, and that's not this place," Patel said.

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General view of the J. Edgar Hoover F.B.I. Building in Washington, U.S., March 10, 2019. (Reuters/Mary F. Calvert / Reuters)

"Look, the FBI is 38,000 when we're fully manned, which we're not. In the national capital region, in the 50-mile radius around Washington, D.C., there were 11,000 FBI employees," Patel said. "That's like a third of the workforce. A third of the crime doesn't happen here, so we're taking 1,500 of those folks and moving them out."

"Every state's getting a plus-up, 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,'" Patel added.

FBI Director Kash Patel said the agency is planning to leave its longtime headquarters at the J. Edgar Hoover Building. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque / Reuters)

The interview with FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino will air on "Sunday Morning Futures" this Sunday, May 18.