After 50 years as the FBI’s main headquarters, the J. Edgar Hoover Building in D.C. is closing permanently, Director Kash Patel announced Friday.

“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.

He didn’t state the exact date the building will close and when FBI employees will move into its new offices.

The agency had announced in July that it would abandon the Hoover building and move to the Ronald Reagan Building, just a few blocks away at 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Patel noted in his post that when President Donald Trump’s administration came into office in January, “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.”

His said that most of the FBI headquarters’ employees will be in the Reagan Building and “the rest are continuing in our ongoing push to put more manpower in the field, where they will remain.”

In November, Maryland leaders sued the Trump administration after it scrapped plans to move the bureau’s headquarters to Greenbelt and opted instead to keep it in Downtown D.C.

Maryland leaders criticized White House officials for ignoring the site selection process of Congress and the General Services Administration when it chose to remain in D.C. The lawsuit also pointed out that Congress had already appropriated funds for the Greenbelt relocation.

When the move to the Reagan Building was announced over the summer, critics maintained that it would not meet the security demands needed for the FBI. Patel said the agency is working on the building to ensure it has the required safety and infrastructure upgrades.

The Reagan Building is connected to the International Trade Center, and already houses some federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, as well as several non-government businesses.

The J. Edgar Hoover Building was designed in the brutalist style popular in the 1960s when it was conceived and constructed. It was criticized for not conforming to the style of other federal buildings, and Hoover himself called it “the greatest monstrosity ever constructed in the history of Washington.” It was completed in 1975, and President Richard Nixon named it after the longtime FBI director after Hoover’s death in 1972.

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WASHINGTON — A man accused of shooting two National Guard troops near the White House has been charged in a complaint with federal firearms charges in connection with the ambush on November 26 that fatally wounded one of the West Virginia National Guard members and seriously injured the second.

Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, has been charged with transporting a firearm in interstate commerce with the intent to commit an offense punishable for more than one year. He has also been charged federally with transporting a stolen firearm in interstate commerce.

“The transfer of this case from Superior Court to District Court ensures that we can undertake the serious, deliberate, and weighty analysis required to determine if the death penalty is appropriate here,” said U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro. “Sarah Beckstrom was just 20 years old when she was killed and her parents are now forced to endure the holiday season without their daughter. Andrew Wolfe, by the grace of God, survived but has a long road ahead in his recovery.”

Lakanwal remains charged with first-degree murder, assault with intent to kill and illegal possession of a firearm in the shooting that killed Beckstrom, 20, and wounded Wolfe, 24, in violation of D.C. code. Lakanwal, who was shot during the encounter, has pleaded not guilty to the D.C. charges.

There is no death penalty in D.C. Superior Court.

Beckstrom and Wolfe were deployed with the West Virginia National Guard for President Donald Trump’s law-enforcement surge in the nation’s capital, which has flooded the city with federal agents and troops since August. Lakanwal is accused of driving from Bellingham, Washington to Washington, D.C. while in possession of a stolen firearm and ambushing the two Guard members outside a subway station three blocks from the White House.

An Afghan national, Laknawal worked with the American government, including the CIA, “as a member of a partner force” in Kandahar, Afghanistan, CIA Director John Ratcliffe said.

Lakanwal, 29, entered the United States in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, officials said. That Biden administration program evacuated and resettled tens of thousands of Afghans after the U.S. withdrawal from the country.

Lakanwal’s lawyer was not immediately available for comment.

The video in the player above is from an earlier report.