The FBI has promoted the head of its Seattle Field Division to the post of executive assistant director of the bureau's National Security Branch in Washington, D.C.

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Just two years after Special Agent Jay S. Tabb Jr. was assigned to lead Seattle’s FBI Field Office, he is leaving to serve as the executive assistant director of the FBI’s National Security Branch in Washington, D.C.

Tabb was selected by FBI Director Christopher A. Wray to oversee national-security investigations and intelligence operations at the agency’s headquarters later this year. Tabb’s duties will include overseeing investigations into counterintelligence, counter-terrorism, and weapons-of-mass-destruction cases, according to a release from the FBI.

In a statement, Tabb said, “the two years I have spent with the FBI’s Seattle Field Office have been among the best in my career.”

In 2016, when Tabb was first assigned as special agent in charge of the FBI’s Seattle division, he held meetings to try to reassure leaders of Seattle’s immigrant communities in the wake of threats from the Trump administration to target Muslims as potential terrorists and deport more undocumented immigrants.

Before leading the Seattle field office, Tabb was the deputy assistant director of the counterterrorism division in Virginia.

Tabb will begin his new role in Washington, D.C., in early October.

A release from the Seattle field office said it was proud of Tabb’s promotion and of his leadership here the past two years and that it was looking for a new special agent in charge for Seattle.

“Selecting his replacement is still ongoing,” a statement said. “We are confident that the new leader will continue to steer our committed workforce to intelligence-driven, threat-focused investigative success.”

Tabb joined the FBI in 1997, after serving in the first Gulf War and rising to the level of captain in the Marine Corps. He began his career at the Dallas field division and served on the only full-time domestic counterterrorism operation in the country, the Hostage Rescue Team out of Quantico, Va., between 2004 and 2009.

He received multiple awards from the FBI, including the Medal of Valor, two FBI Stars, the Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Service, and an Exceptional Service Medal from the Director of National Intelligence.

Updated to clarify that Hostage Rescue Team is headquartered in Quantico, Va., in the penultimate paragraph.