Report: FBI leadership considering moving training academy to Huntsville
FBI director Kash Patel testifies before a U.S. Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Thursday, May 8, 2025. The bureau's leadership is considering moving one of its elite training academies to Huntsville. (Photo from U.S. Senate webcast)
The Federal Bureau of Investigation's leadership is considering moving one of its training programs for local, federal and international law enforcement from Quantico, Virginia, to Huntsville, according to the Washington Post.
Law enforcement agencies across the world nominate officers with leadership potential to participate in the 10-week training National Academy.
The FBI has a separate training program for new bureau hires. That program, and other parts of the FBI's Quantico facilities, including the bureau's laboratory division, would remain at the sprawling campus in Northern Virginia under FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino's proposed pilot plan, people familiar with the discussions told the newspaper.
Messages seeking comment were left Wednesday with the FBI; the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency; Gov. Kay Ivey; U.S. Sen. Katie Britt, R-AL, and Tommy Tuberville, R-AL; U.S. Rep. Dale Strong, R-Huntsville; and Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle were left Wednesday morning.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that Congress should be 'deeply skeptical of any plan to uproot the FBI's National Academy from its longtime home at Quantico and relocate it to Huntsville.'
'This move raises serious questions, starting with why such a relocation is even necessary, and at what cost?' the statement said. 'Quantico is co-located with other critical FBI and national security assets and before we spend taxpayer dollars on a disruptive and potentially unnecessary move, the Bureau owes Congress and the American people a clear justification for this plan.'
The FBI moved an explosives training academy to Huntsville in 2016 and employed about 1,500 people in the city at the start of 2023. Republicans in Congress have named the city as a possible place for a new FBI headquarters, claiming the FBI's current location exposes it to political influence and leads to duplicated services.
The push to move the National Academy to Huntsville has drawn criticism from some FBI personnel, who see little justification for the potentially costly move, the people told the Post. The FBI's training facilities at Quantico were recently upgraded, and the people familiar with the discussions said critics do not think Huntsville would have comparable facilities without significant new funding.
President Donald Trump's pick for the FBI's director Kash Patel, has said that he would move up to 1,500 staff and agents out of the FBI's downtown Washington headquarters to satellite offices across the country. Five hundred of those employees would go to Redstone Arsenal, the bureau's large satellite headquarters in Huntsville.
States Newsroom reporter Jacob Fischler contributed to this report. Updated at 12:20 p.m. with statement from Sen. Mark Warner.
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