President Trump threw cold water on the plans to build a new FBI headquarters in Maryland, adding new uncertainty into a contentious and yearslong issue for lawmakers. The General Services Administration picked Greenbelt, Md., as the home of the new FBI headquarters, after a lengthy and high-profile competition over where the new facility would be built, and Congress has appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars for the headquarters project. Trump said in a speech at the Justice Department that the FBI and the main Justice Department “have to be near each other.” The Maryland site can be reached in an hour from the Justice Department. “They were going to build an FBI headquarters three hours away in Maryland, a liberal state, but that has no bearing on what I’m about to say. But we’re going to stop it,” Trump said, reports Roll Call.
“Not going to let that happen,” Trump said. “We’re going to build another big FBI building right where it is, which would have been the right place.” (The FBI is located across the street from DOJ in downtown Washington.) Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) said he would “fight that tooth and nail, and there will not be a penny appropriated for an FBI headquarters anywhere other than Greenbelt, Maryland.” In a joint press release, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Democratic members of Congress from the state said they would continue working to bring the headquarters to Maryland. A GSA spokesperson said at the time of the site selection in 2023 that the agency chose Greenbelt because it had the greatest transportation access to FBI workers and visitors and it was the lowest cost to taxpayers, along with giving “the government the most certainty on project delivery schedule.” The fiscal 2024 funding package included $200 million for the project and Congress in fiscal 2023 appropriated $375 million for it. Some House Republicans have opposed constructing a new headquarters amid hostility toward FBI leadership under the Biden administration.