FBI Director Kash Patel’s desire for his agents to investigate violent crime is sparking fears that the bureau is creeping beyond its mandate and acting as a local law enforcement arm.
Some former officials believe the initiative to support President Donald Trump’s crackdown on crime in D.C. is unjustly siphoning resources and personnel away from crucial national security investigations, such as terrorism and cyber crime.
And one says it could welcome nefarious activity from criminal groups who see potential gaps as an ‘open season.’
‘Not everything can be a priority,’ former senior Justice Department official Christopher Painter told the Daily Mail.
‘You have a set number of resources, so if you take some of those resources away, obviously [it] has an impact on other missions,’ he explained.
But retired FBI Supervisory Agent John Nantz argues that the FBI can ‘walk and chew gum at the same time.’
‘I think that’s a spurious argument because we’re talking about a fraction of the FBI workforce. The FBI is a big agency,’ Nantz said.
‘This is not impacting national security investigations,’ he added, noting that many agents are adding this patrol to their existing work load.
Around 100 agents within the FBI are now patrolling Washington D.C. streets every night — representing not even 1 percent of the special agent workforce.
FBI Director Kash Patel’s overhaul of the FBI includes directing more agents to investigate violent crime
At least 100 FBI agents have been deployed to the streets of D.C. to assist in President Donald Trump’s federal-level crime crackdown. Pictured: FBI agents gather in Southeast Washington, D.C. on August 20, 2025 amid Trump’s bump in federal law enforcement presence in the city
It’s part of Patel’s dramatic reshaping of the FBI. He has reassigned hundreds of agents to immigration enforcement and now put dozens onto the streets of D.C. following Trump’s takeover of the city’s police force.
Critics have emerged – many anonymously – claiming that it’s unsustainable and against the FBI mission to assist with street crime.
‘FBI agents are not police officers,’ former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe said. ‘Most of them don’t come to the FBI from a background as a police officer.’
‘So they don’t have the training and the skillset and the experience of doing that work, which can be dangerous both for them and for the people they would be policing,’ he added.
Asked about the workforce allocation for violent crime, Patel told the Daily Mail: ‘The FBI has the finest agents in the world. They live up to the highest standards of integrity and toughness.’
He said the FBI ‘will go wherever the mission takes us to keep Americans safe.’
On Thursday in an X post, he boasted how the FBI and federal partners have made more than 1,200 arrests in D.C.
The FBI specifically conducted 35 arrests on Wednesday night, recovered three illegal firearms and conducted 12 drug seizures.
‘We’re not letting up,’ the FBI director wrote.
Nantz details how FBI agents work 10-hour days compared to the usual Americans’ eight hours. And now, he claims they are working beyond that to assist in Trump’s federal takeover.
Some agents may start their days with normal investigatory duties and end it patrolling the National Mall.
Patel’s advisor Erica Knight explained that the bureau is constantly examining nationwide needs and shifting assets to ‘address the biggest threats to Americans’ while insisting that ‘nothing will take away from the FBI’s core mission.’
‘Why immigration? FBI’s role is to target criminal cartel networks,’ she went on. ‘Why crack down on violent crime? Because Americans are facing deadly threats on their streets and in their neighborhoods.’
But Painter says priorities that the FBI is uniquely qualified to address – like cyber crime – will inevitably take a back seat if agents from those investigations are pulled to patrol the streets.
With agents on the streets of D.C., some critics question whether the FBI can keep up with its core mission investigating transnational crimes and cyber and terrorism threats. Pictured: FBI and Secret Service agents join MPD recovering a handgun from a vehicle amid Trump’s federal takeover
FBI agents patrol 14th St. Northwest outside popular D.C. French fare restaurant Le Diplomate on August 25, 2025
He claims that cyber attacks have only ‘gotten even worse’ in recent years, and claims criminal groups who see a gap when agents are pulled to the streets might take the opportunity to attack.
‘If I’m a nation-state or a criminal group, and I know you don’t have the capability to go after me, why wouldn’t I redouble my efforts?’ he theorized. ‘Why wouldn’t I say, ‘hey, it’s open season.’ Why wouldn’t I be going after critical infrastructure, like some of the ransomware groups are doing in hospitals and things like that?’
‘Why wouldn’t I, as a nation state, up my activity?’ Painter concluded.
On a call with 50 field offices earlier this month, top FBI official Jodi Cohen said that agents are expected to spend time investigating violent crime, four officials briefed on the call explained to MSNBC.
In an effort to recruit more agents, she said, Patel will allow other federal law enforcement agents to join the bureau after abbreviated training and would ditch the college degree requirement.
This is leading to criticism that agents will be permitted into the field who are not qualified.
Painter told the Daily Mail that patrolling for street crime is ‘not really the duty’ that FBI agents train for.
‘Not that they’re not competent at all, but that’s not what their value is,’ he added. ‘Their value is their analytic capability and their investigatory capability.’
White the FBI’s core mission includes safeguarding the U.S. from terrorism, espionage or spycraft and cyberattacks, they are also tasked with providing criminal justice services to various law enforcement agencies.
The bureau has 55 field offices all across America.
All received the directive to put agents on the case investigating violent crime in America.
While agents are only being pulled into D.C. for the federal takeover, Trump has signalled that he might want to do the same thing to decrease crime in other cities – like Chicago and Baltimore.
To support local law enforcement entities, Knight says that the FBI will examine their needs and deliver the resources they can spare ‘without taking away from the core mission of the FBI.’
The bureau’s defenders point out that the FBI has a long history of stepping in when local and state authorities are unable or unwilling to tackle certain threats, from organized crime in the mid-20th century to civil rights violations in the 1960s.
The FBI dramatically shifted from traditional crime fighting to counterterrorism as its top priority after the September 11 attacks.
Painter claims that these shifts ‘made sense’ but that ‘undoing’ that now could create ‘a real serious effect on their capabilities to go after these very serious crimes.’
Patel is helping lead federal response efforts to Trump’s crackdown on violent crime in D.C.
This is sparking worry that the blurred lines between federal and local policing could erode public trust and raise new constitutional questions.
‘Why do we need a national police force when that’s exactly what state and local police around the country do as their day jobs?’ Painter questioned. ‘They are familiar with it, they’re trained for it, they know the local communities.’
The FBI itself acknowledges the complex line it walks when working alongside local police.
‘Do FBI agents work with state, local, or other law enforcement officers on ‘task forces’? Absolutely, and we consider it central to our success today,’ the bureau says in its official FAQ listed on its website.
But the agency also makes clear that it does not ‘supervise or take over’ local investigations, even when federal crimes are involved. ‘State and local law enforcement agencies are not subordinate to the FBI,’ the bureau writes.
