Kash Patel Says FBI Closing the Hoover Building, Which He Once Promised to Make a ‘Deep State Museum’
Jennifer Bowers Bahney
Fri, December 26, 2025 at 9:52 PM UTC
2 min read
(Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images)
FBI Director Kash Patel announced Friday that the FBI would be closing the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington D.C., permanently, after once promising to turn it into a “deep-state museum.”
Patel wrote on X, “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. Working directly with President Trump and Congress, we accomplished what no one else could.”
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Planning for the building named after the first director began in 1962, and it was formally dedicated by President Gerald Ford in 1975.
Patel’s post continued:
When we arrived, taxpayers were about to be on the hook for nearly $5 billion for a new headquarters that wouldn’t open until 2035. We scrapped that plan. Instead, we selected the already-existing Reagan Building, saving billions and allowing the transition to begin immediately with required safety and infrastructure upgrades already underway. Once complete, most of the HQ FBI workforce will move in, and the rest are continuing in our ongoing push to put more manpower in the field, where they will remain.
This decision puts resources where they belong: defending the homeland, crushing violent crime, and protecting national security. It delivers better tools for today’s FBI workforce at a fraction of the cost.
When he was still a podcaster, before Donald Trump appointed him to head the FBI, Patel claimed that the bureau’s “footprint” was too large.
“I’d shut down the FBI Hoover Building on day one…and reopen it next day as a museum of the Deep State,” Patel told podcaster Shawn Ryan in 2023. And I’d take the 7,000 people who work in that building and send them across America to go and chase criminals…What do you need 7,000 people there for?”
Patel has been criticized for spending taxpayer money recklessly in other ways. This week, MS NOW reported that Patel ordered a fleet of four luxury armored BMWs to replace the Chevrolet Suburbans usually driven by the bureau. He also came under fire for repeatedly taking the FBI plane for personal “joyrides” with his girlfriend, arguing, “I’m entitled to a personal life.”
The post Kash Patel Says FBI Closing the Hoover Building, Which He Once Promised to Make a ‘Deep State Museum’ first appeared on Mediaite.