Overview

• New policy removes the bachelor’s-degree requirement for special agents and shortens the Quantico course to eight weeks for a class tentatively set to begin in October.
• Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino are driving the changes, and neither has publicly explained the shift.
• Reporting links the overhaul to projected departures of more than 5,000 employees through buyouts and early retirements, along with firings tied to Jan. 6 cases.
• The number of special agents could drop from about 13,000 to roughly 11,000, prompting worries about readiness for complex financial, corruption, and national-security investigations.
• Criticism has intensified, with former counterterrorism official Chris O’Leary calling the plan “generational destruction” and pointing to the unusual addition of Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey as a co-deputy director.