Daijiworld Media Network - Washington

Washington, Dec 28: The FBI will permanently shut down its historic Hoover headquarters in Washington, DC, as Director Kash Patel announced plans to relocate personnel to the building formerly occupied by the now-defunct US Agency for International Development (USAID).

“After more than 20 years of failed attempts, we finalized a plan to permanently close the FBI’s Hoover headquarters and move the workforce into a safe, modern facility,” Patel said in a post on X on Friday, highlighting that the move would save taxpayer funds and better meet the agency’s operational needs.

Opened in 1975 in the brutalist style, the J. Edgar Hoover Building has long been criticized for being outdated and unsuitable for modern FBI operations. Plans to relocate the headquarters have faced delays for decades.

The move to the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center will keep the agency’s top personnel close to the Justice Department, White House, and other federal institutions. However, the decision is a setback for Maryland, where a new FBI headquarters in Greenbelt had been funded by Congress in 2023.

Maryland officials, including Governor Wes Moore and State Attorney General Anthony Brown, have filed a lawsuit to halt the Greenbelt plan. “We will not let the Trump administration strip away what Prince George’s County won and deny its communities the transformative benefits this project would bring,” Brown said.

The General Services Administration had cited cost-effectiveness, transportation access, and project certainty as reasons for selecting the Maryland site. Patel, reflecting former President Donald Trump’s preference, has consistently supported alternative options, previously stating he would turn the Hoover Building into a “museum of the deep state.”

The relocation marks the end of an era for the iconic but aging Hoover headquarters while shifting the FBI into a modernized space in downtown Washington.