Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, is pushing ahead with a plan to decentralize the agency’s command structure and divide the bureau into three regions, according to an internal email obtained by The New York Times.
The move will mean that in effect, the top agents in 52 field offices around the country will no longer answer to the deputy director, a significant departure from the way the bureau has done business.
Instead, those field offices will report to three branch directors at headquarters who will be in charge of the East, West and Central regions. The remaining three F.B.I. offices and the largest in the country — New York, Washington and Los Angeles — will answer to the deputy director.
“These changes are meant to empower our S.A.C.s through improved engagement and leadership connections,” said the email, which was sent on Friday, referring to special agents in charge, who typically oversee field offices in a given region.
It represents a shift after a quarter-century of an F.B.I. run under a structure put in place by Robert S. Mueller III after the Sept. 11 attacks. The model was established to address administrative lapses and bolster efforts to deter terrorism. In Mr. Patel’s iteration, he has appointed a total of five branch directors, eliminating the executive assistant directors who previously managed the F.B.I. on a daily basis.
The announced changes were not unexpected, as Mr. Patel has already moved to reduce the number of F.B.I. employees working at headquarters and push them into the field, making good on a pledge he made before becoming director. His efforts have drawn praise from President Trump.
The swift decision to alter the hierarchy of the F.B.I. comes just weeks after Mr. Patel was confirmed, raising questions among former and current agents about the thoroughness of the plan. In particular, they said, they worried that the changes could result in less coordination between field offices and create intelligence gaps. Still, even former senior executives skeptical of Mr. Patel’s leadership and relative lack of experience believe the new model, while imperfect, could be an improvement and certainly reduce the deputy director’s immense responsibilities.
In theory, the move could help the new deputy director, Dan Bongino, who has never worked for the F.B.I. and has a limited understanding of its complex and global operations, transition into an important role that has traditionally been filled by a senior agent. The changes could free him up more to handle domestic and international investigative and intelligence activities, among other things. The previous deputy director had dozens of direct reports, including all the top agents in the field.
How Mr. Patel came up with his plan so quickly is not exactly clear, but he had been relying on a group of former agents, known as the director advisory team, for guidance. But those agents were long retired and only one had reached the senior ranks.
One former F.B.I. official familiar with the advisory team’s work said that members had been considering a regional model, but it differed from the one that was announced. A former senior agent on the advisory team who had worked with F.B.I. leadership before Mr. Patel arrived had even written a white paper that included a similar model.
The former official said that the most recent version was better — because of important congressional and National Security Council requirements — but that the success of Mr. Patel’s plan hinged on strong leaders in those roles.
Changes to the top ranks of the F.B.I.’s structure had been discussed long before Mr. Patel’s arrival, former senior F.B.I. officials said, along with reducing the number of employees located in the Capitol region. One former executive who left several years ago but was deeply involved in the bureau’s management applauded Mr. Patel’s effort.
As part of his plan, Mr. Patel named five acting branch directors to essentially run the F.B.I. after the former executives in charge of these programs were abruptly pushed out.
Among them is Michael Glasheen, who ran counterterrorism at the Washington field office after the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 when he took the job that August. Mr. Glasheen will be in charge of “field services,” but what responsibilities fall under his purview were not exactly clear. Previously, the bureau had executive assistant directors for science and technology and intelligence. Former F.B.I. officials said Mr. Patel decided to put intelligence under the operational control of the national security branch.
Mr. Patel has said: “The biggest problem the F.B.I. has had has come out of its intel shops. I’d break that component out of it.”
Also promoted was Steven Jensen, who was tapped to oversee the bureau’s national security programs. Mr. Jensen most recently ran the F.B.I.’s field office in Columbia, S.C. Former agents said the selection of Mr. Jensen stood out because he ran a major section at the F.B.I. that helps manage the threat of domestic terrorism. In that role, he helped coordinate the F.B.I.’s nationwide investigative efforts in connection with the Jan. 6 attack.
President Trump and his allies, including Mr. Patel, have attacked the bureau for arresting those involved in the Jan. 6 riot. It was not known if Mr. Patel had questioned the men about their views on the F.B.I.’s response to Jan. 6.
In a speech at the Justice Department on Friday, Mr. Trump said he had “pardoned hundreds of political prisoners who had been grossly mistreated. We removed the senior F.B.I. officials who misdirected resources to send S.W.A.T. teams after grandmothers and J6 hostages.”
Now the president’s director, Mr. Patel, is promoting the men Mr. Trump has falsely accused of wrongdoing.
The Jan. 6 investigation was the largest in the bureau’s history, with more than 5,000 F.B.I. employees taking part in about 2,400 investigations. Before Mr. Patel arrived, the F.B.I.’s acting leaders clashed with the Justice Department, which had demanded the names of bureau personnel who worked on the investigations.
The demand elicited fears at the time that the administration would conduct a purge or make their names public, possibly putting their lives at risk. So far, the Justice Department has not done so.
Critics of the agency have said that if the bureau had taken a more aggressive stance in the run-up to Jan. 6, the rioting at the Capitol might have been prevented. But the bureau lacked imagination and failed to connect to the dots, ultimately missing a chance to thwart the domestic terrorism attack that further polarized the country.
