I’ve walked the halls of the J. Edgar Hoover Building, not as a tourist or outsider, but as someone trusted to help protect its secrets. And I can say with the utmost assurance that it is time for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to leave it behind.
Outside of the building itself aging less-than-gracefully (truly, it’s falling apart), the FBI headquarters is well-staffed and, some could argue, over-equipped for its mission. The issue isn’t what’s inside the building, but what the building’s location does to the mindset and mission of our FBI agents. The building is too centralized and, as such, many agents are out of touch with the Americans they serve, both in Hoover and in the field. This is unfair to the American people and can only truly be rectified by decentralizing the Bureau.
Luckily, FBI Director Kash Patel is planning just that, and he has enough courage to face the career brass who may reflexively disagree with his plan.
In 2016, I was temporarily assigned to the FBI’s Operational Technology Division (OTD), working directly on the Bureau’s Technical Program for Defensive Electronics. My mission was to help safeguard one of America’s most sensitive spaces from surveillance threats. The experience gave me an unfiltered view of the building that houses the FBI’s top leadership and operational divisions. What I saw then — and what I know now — is why I support relocating FBI Headquarters with a sense of urgency few outside the Bureau understand.
Even back in 2016, the Hoover Building was already showing serious signs of decay: obsolete wiring, structural degradation, inadequate shielding, and spaces that simply couldn’t be retrofitted to meet the high-security demands of a post–September 11th law enforcement agency. When your job is to secure communications from foreign espionage, you notice every vulnerability — and this building had more than its fair share.
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Since then, nothing has improved. In fact, it’s gotten worse. As such, the General Services Administration (GSA) and the FBI have been studying the need for a new headquarters for over a decade. As early as 2011, government reports concluded that Hoover could only house about half of the Bureau’s D.C.-based staff, forcing the rest into over 20 annexes scattered across the capital region. That dispersion — often in leased, mixed-use spaces with private tenants — creates obvious security risks and cripples operational efficiency. This is an unacceptable state of affairs for the world’s premier law enforcement agency and belies a problem much deeper than a decade-long study that should have been completed half a decade ago. Hoover is not just outdated; it is unsafe, unsound, and unfit for the mission it’s meant to serve.
Critics complain about the projected $3.5 billion cost of building a new headquarters, though many of them were silent in the face of the wanton federal spending expanding a politicized American police state under the Biden administration. But what they fail to calculate are the hidden costs of staying in the decaying Hoover building. Tens of millions in federal dollars are already being wasted on leased annexes. Hundreds of millions more will be sunk into patchwork maintenance for a facility well past its prime. Critical time and productivity — in a mission where every second counts — are lost to inter-building commutes, redundant infrastructure, and constant workarounds. Worst of all, the building’s structural and electronic vulnerabilities pose a direct threat to national security, undermining the FBI’s ability to defend against foreign espionage and cyberattacks from within its own walls.
Now, with the plan to shut down Hoover and move to the Ronald Reagan Building in the Beltway going ahead, Director Patel’s plan to return the FBI to form is coming to fruition. The Reagan building, which previously housed the now-shuttered USAID, is a premiere federal building that will ensure that our federal agents have the best resources, technology, and office space available to effectively accomplish the agency’s mission. The move also reflects responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars, with Director Patel himself calling it the “most cost-effective way” to fulfill the FBI’s mission of defending America.
That was the right call. But, since staying in the current facility isn’t a viable option, now the challenge is: where do we go from here?
The answer lies in taking a surgical approach to the situation that encompasses the best of that vision. FBI Director Kash Patel has already moved 1,500 FBI personnel out of D.C. and begun dispersing agents closer to crime centers nationwide. But, even with these initial efforts, there is still a need for a leaner, smarter, and safer central command — not a “shrine to bureaucracy,” but a mission-ready hub that supports field offices, partners with DOJ, and reflects the kind of national security leadership President Trump has always promised. The current plan to move to the Ronald Reagan Building in D.C. represents the type of innovative thinking that we should expect from our federal government. It will allow the FBI to strengthen its role as the best law enforcement operation in the world while saving hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.
Let’s call this plan what it is: a smart, tactical upgrade, in a time when law enforcement is needed more than ever. The new facility embodies what this president stands for: true leadership in law enforcement not beholden to the machinations of the Beltway. Leadership that is leaner, faster, and puts Americans’ safety and security ahead of petty politics.
The Hoover Building was a marvel when it opened in 1975. Today, it's a liability, and no patch job can change that. The idea that we could rebuild a new headquarters on the same site while keeping the Bureau operational is a bureaucratic fantasy.
We don’t need more delays. We need action — for the safety of agents, the security of national intelligence, and for the future of American law enforcement.
Richard F. Stout, Jr. is a retired FBI Special Agent and founder of Reform the Bureau, a national group of former and current agents advocating for integrity, oversight, and accountability in federal law enforcement.
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