Tipsheet

Not Even Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino Was Ready for Kash Patel to Drop This News

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  May 16, 2025 11:00 AM

President Donald Trump is cutting $500 million to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo teased her Sunday interview with FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino. With these cuts, the plans for a new headquarters are likely put on the back burner, but that didn’t stop Mr. Patel from dropping some big news about the changes to the agency, some of which even shocked Mr. Bongino—he didn’t think his boss would make the announcement now.  

“You just gave up a big nugget, there,” said Bongino. The full interview will air on Sunday Morning Futures

In keeping with his mandate as FBI director, Mr. Patel will transfer 1,500 agents to other locations to enforce federal laws and fight crime. The era of the FBI being the Democrats’ political police force is over. He also said that the FBI is leaving the J. Edgar Hoover Building (via NY Post):

“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,” he said in a teaser clip that will air in full on “Sunday Morning Futures.” 

Patel did not specify what safety hazards are posed by the massive brutalist structure on Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and Congress, or share a timeframe for the move or the bureau’s new headquarters location. 

[…] 

“Look, the FBI is 38,000 when we are fully manned, which we are not. In the national capital region, in the 50-mile radius around Washington, DC, there were 11,000 FBI employees. That’s like a third of the workforce. A third of the crime doesn’t happen here,” Patel told Bartiromo. 

“So we are taking 1,500 of those folks and moving them out. Every state is 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 work at the FBI because we want to fight violent crime and we want to be sent out into the country to do it.” 

He added: “in the next 3, 6, 9 months we’re going to be doing that hard.”

I like the idea of turning the old FBI headquarters into the Deep State Museum.