FBI DIRECTOR KASH PATEL: One year later, crime is down and America is safer

On February 20, 2025, I used to be honored to be confirmed because the ninth Director of the FBI.

Quite a bit has occurred in that point. Below President Donald Trump’s management, the FBI and our companions on the state, native and federal ranges have contributed to some of the safe occasions America has seen in many years.

After I sat earlier than the Senate for my affirmation, I pledged to refocus the FBI on its core mission: crush violent crime and defend the homeland, strengthen transparency, and restore public belief. A yr later, my workforce and I’ve labored on daily basis to show these phrases into motion. We’ve achieved historic outcomes.

From 2024 to 2025, the FBI noticed a 197% improve in arrests, from 34,000 to 67,000. We disrupted 1,800 gangs and legal enterprises, a rise of 210%. Brokers have seized greater than 2,100 kilos of lethal fentanyl — sufficient to kill 150 million People — a 31% improve. That mission additionally expanded overseas, the place my journey to Beijing resulted in a historic settlement to close off the stream of fentanyl precursor chemical substances on the supply, instantly focusing on the provision chains which can be poisoning American communities. Arrests associated to nihilistic violent extremism, together with perpetrators who prey on kids, have elevated by 490%. Greater than 6,200 underage victims had been situated, a rise of twenty-two%. The variety of spy arrests elevated by 35%. We captured six of the FBI’s Ten Most Needed fugitives in a single yr—two greater than the whole earlier administration—a gaggle that has collectively been on the run for greater than fifty years, together with Ryan Wedding ceremony. Nationwide, the homicide fee fell by a report 20%, a stage not seen in a century.

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President Trump allowed good cops to be cops whereas giving us the instruments crucial to hold out the mission. The outcomes converse for themselves.

However the success of this administration and this FBI goes far past the numbers. Over the previous yr, there have been quiet however constant transformations inside the Bureau—modifications that many People might by no means see on cable information or on social media, however which have paid important dividends.

From day one, we reoriented the FBI to satisfy fashionable threats with 4 clear priorities: suppress violent crime, defend the homeland, restore public belief, and implement sturdy organizational accountability. Below the earlier administration, violent crimes barely met the FBI’s high ten priorities. At the moment that is central and that’s the reason arrests for violent crimes have doubled to greater than 30,000 by 2025.

Shifting assets to homeland protection has helped us seize a few of the most needed criminals on the planet: Nicholas Maduro, needed by the Justice Division for narcoterrorism; Mohammad Sharifullah, an alleged key ISIS determine within the Abbey Gate suicide bombing in Kabul; and Zubayr Al-Bakoush, a key co-conspirator within the 2012 Benghazi assault that killed 4 People: Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. We additionally disrupted and stopped three separate terror plots throughout the holidays, stopping potential mass casualty assaults and guaranteeing People may rejoice safely.

To revive transparency and oversight, we submitted greater than 40,000 pages of paperwork to Congress in our first yr alone, a stage of disclosure that represents greater than double the mixed doc manufacturing of my predecessors.

We lowered the Bureau’s dependence on the bloated paperwork in Washington, DC, and introduced security and safety assets again to Primary Road America. We’ve transferred 1,000 officers from the Nationwide Capital Area to subject workplaces throughout the nation, with 1,000 extra intelligence and help personnel to observe this yr. We additionally established the superior coaching facility at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, together with the first-ever legislation enforcement anti-UAS coaching program.

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We’ve restructured operations in order that subject workplaces now not report back to headquarters by means of a single bottleneck. Dividing workplaces into regional buildings elevated accountability and responsiveness to the general public. We eradicated models that failed to perform the mission, together with the politicized CR-15 workforce, eliminated personnel who acted unethically, and rebuilt management round outcomes.

The FBI is now sooner and extra responsive, with a heavier give attention to expertise. We established the Director’s Strategic Data Middle (DSIC), a very redesigned info heart targeted on proactive menace identification and 24/7 vital incident monitoring to dramatically enhance response occasions. We additionally launched a Expertise Working Group, led by Dan Bongino, to assist strengthen the nationwide safety infrastructure by means of synthetic intelligence and enhanced biometric coordination with interagency companions. Quite than persevering with a patchwork strategy, we engaged non-public sector companions to rebuild core techniques and expanded the FBI’s management position within the Nationwide Counterintelligence Activity Pressure to higher coordinate efforts towards hostile intelligence actors focusing on the US.

After many years of delay and extra, President Trump facilitated the deal to shut the Hoover Constructing mission. We canceled a minimal $5 billion taxpayer-funded plan that would not be open for no less than a decade, and as an alternative switched to utilizing the present Ronald Reagan Constructing, which gives a secure and fashionable headquarters at a fraction of the price to the American folks.

Maybe most significantly, we’ve got made it a high precedence that leaders within the subject work hand-in-hand with state and native legislation enforcement. Final yr, we created a sequence of Homeland Safety Activity Forces – historic partnerships with state officers geared toward eradicating violent criminals from America’s streets. In Virginia, this effort resulted in practically 600 arrests in only one month. We’ve replicated this mannequin in Memphis and Washington, DC underneath the President’s Activity Pressure. In these two cities alone, violent crime is down 30%, whereas homicides are down practically 70% in DC and 50% in Memphis. We additionally created the first-ever Regulation Enforcement Accomplice Engagement Council (LEPEC), giving native legislation enforcement a everlasting seat on the desk inside the FBI.

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Trying on the numbers, President Trump’s FBI has had a report yr. However the institutional modifications made previously yr go far past statistics, arrests or headlines. We’ve rebuilt and reworked the FBI into a corporation designed to higher serve the American folks and preserve the nation safer for many years to return, working with our companions on the Division of Justice who proceed to prosecute and maintain dangerous actors accountable.

As for us, we’ll proceed to place the mission first.

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