On his first official staff video conference, FBI Director Kash Patel didn't waste time listing a significant number of major changes he intended to make to the bureau.
That's according to a Thursday report in the Wall Street Journal, in which President Donald Trump's new head of the FBI held fast to his promise of shaking up the nation's top law enforcement agency upon taking charge. Patel was said to have immediately ordered changes to the bureau's command structure, making it based by region as opposed to being centralized out of Washington D.C. He also demanded the FBI's fitness requirements for agents to be increased and announced plans to set up a partnership between the FBI and the Ultimate Fighting Championship, or UFC (the mixed martial arts league owned by Trump backer Dana White). Several people on the call told the Journal that Patel "rattled off so many changes that employees couldn’t tell if he was serious about all of them."
Wall Street Journal reporters Sadie Gurman and Aruna Viswantha additionally wrote that Patel announced that 1,500 FBI staff would be moved from Washington D.C. to cities with high crime rates like Cleveland, Detroit and Minneapolis. However, one person on the call informed Patel that such a move would cost roughly $100 million and that it spending bureau funds on that project may require an act of Congress.
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"Patel was unmoved," Gurman and Viswantha wrote. "Figure out how to do it anyway, and fast, he told them."
At one point during the meeting, Patel said he intended to make the weekly conference a "monthly" occasion, saying that he "didn't like meetings." He also appeared to take a separate phone call, according to the Journal's sources. And Patel indicated he planned to spend most of his time in Las Vegas, where he lived in 2024, as well as ordering his Washington D.C. office to be redecorated and for for his personal trainer to have clearance to enter the J. Edgar Hoover building to assist Patel with his workouts on site.
In addition to serving as the ninth director of the FBI, Patel has also been named the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms – which is the first time any FBI director has worked a second job. The Trump administration has not explained how it expects Patel to fulfill his duties of overseeing both law enforcement agencies given the strenuous nature of both jobs.
So far, Patel has not ordered any changes to the J. Edgar Hoover building itself, despite saying on a podcast that he intended to shutter it and turn it into a "Museum of the Deep State." And the Journal noted that he apparently reneged on his promise to ensure that the bureau's number two official would be a career FBI agent after Trump named MAGA podcaster Dan Bongino as deputy director earlier this week.
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Click here to read the Journal's full report (subscription required).