Feb. 21 (UPI) — FBI Director Kash Patel told employees Friday on his first day on the job he plans to move agency jobs from Washington, D.C., to field offices around the country and to FBI Redstone Arsenal campus in Huntsville, Ala.
CNN obtained an email to staff.
“My priority is to support and drive even more impactful investigations,” Patel wrote. “Enhancing the field resources and bolstering our operational capabilities are the most effective ways to protect the American people.”
Patel had focused on criticizing the agency for being nominated by Donald Trump, even saying the headquarters would be turned into a museum right after he was sworn in.
But during his Senate confirmation hearing this month, he told Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware that he meant the FBI needed to move more agents and its investigative focus into the interior of the country to protect Americans.
The FBI has about 1,300 workers at its Huntsville complex.
Overall, the FBI has around 38,000 employees, including 13,700 special agents.
He was sworn in s the agency’s ninth FBI director by Attorney General Palm Bondi to the 10-year-term. All of them were Republicans, including Christopher Wray, who didn’t finish his term because Trump wanted him out.
“Look, I know the media’s in here, and if you have a target, the target’s right here,” Patel said Friday as he pointed to himself. “It is not the men and women at the FBI.”
“You have written everything you possibly can about me that’s fake, malicious, slanderous and defamatory. Keep it coming. Bring it on, but leave the men and women of the FBI out of it. They deserve better,” Patel told news outlets, sparking applause from his supporters in the room.
Patel addressed his critics who believe there will be a “two-tiered system of justice.”
“Not with Attorney General Bondi,” he said. “There’s a singular system of justice for all Americans, and there will be accountability.
“We will uphold the Constitution. We will uphold ourselves to the Constitution. The men and women at the FBI – I have your back because you have the backs of the American people,” he said. “You will be held to the same high standard. Any deviation from that standard will not be tolerated at this Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
He then met with senior FBI leaders who were installed before his confirmation.
On Thursday, Patel was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in a 51-49 vote. Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joined all 47 Democrats in opposing his nomination. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who opposed Cabinet picks Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, voted in favor of Trump’s pick for FBI director.
Patel thanked Trump, his family and the senators who voted for his confirmation, saying they’d put an “enormous leap of faith” in him.
“I am living the American dream, and anyone that thinks the American dream is dead, just look right here. You’re talking to a first-generation Indian kid who’s about to lead the law enforcement community of the greatest nation on God’s green Earth. That can’t happen anywhere else,” Patel said.
Previously served as a National Security Council official, chief of staff to the acting secretary of defense and senior advisor to the acting director of national intelligence in Trump’s first presidency. He also has been a public defender and Justice Department trial attorney.
Commerce secretary
Howard Lutnick on Friday was sworn in as commerce secretary by Vice President JD Vance during a ceremony in the Oval Office.
He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate, 51-45 in a party-line vote with two Democrat and Republican senators not voting.
During the confirmation hearing, Lutnick said he favors blanket tariffs on a country-by-country basis to help balance trade between the United States and other nations.
“Our farmers, our ranchers and our fishermen are treated with disrespect,” Lutnick told the committee. “We need that disrespect to end, and I think tariffs are a way to create reciprocity.”
Lutnick, the former chair and CEO of investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald, said during his confirmation hearing that “my plan is to only serve the American people. So I will divest, meaning I will sell all of my interests, all of my business interests, all of my assets, everything.”