In a Friday speech, Trump said he wanted FBI headquarters, currently slated to move to suburban Maryland, to stay in the District.
President Donald Trump said in a speech Friday that he would keep the headquarters of the FBI in downtown D.C., upending plans to move the bureau from its severely outdated building to a new facility in suburban Maryland.
“They were going to build an FBI headquarters three hours away in Maryland, a liberal state,” Trump said at the Justice Department, adding that the state’s political leanings had “no bearing” on his decision. “But we’re going to stop it. We’re not going to let that happen.”
The Biden administration announced its decision to move the FBI to Greenbelt, Maryland, in 2023, following more than a decade of jockeying by local jurisdictions to land the bureau and its thousands of jobs. Greenbelt is about 10 miles from D.C., not three hours.
But Trump has never wanted the FBI to move to the suburbs. In 2017, the first Trump administration canceled the search for a new headquarters site. In May, after federal officials had restarted the process and selected the Greenbelt site, Trump wrote on Truth Social, “The new FBI building should be built in Washington, D.C., not Maryland, and be the centerpiece of my plan to totally renovate and rebuild our capital city into the most beautiful and safest anywhere in the world.”
It was not immediately clear where Trump expects the FBI headquarters to go. On Friday, the president initially said that it would stay where it is. Then, a few minutes later, he said it could move to the smaller Commerce Department building, saying FBI Director Kash Patel had indicated that the bureau wouldn’t need such a large space because agents would be relocated away from D.C.
If the Trump administration is successful in blocking the FBI’s move to Maryland, it would be a devastating blow to Prince George’s County, which has anticipated an economic boost from the transformation of a site that’s currently a vast surface parking lot next to the Greenbelt Metro station.
“The county was prepared to build a strong ecosystem of support around that location, which would have brought tremendous revenue as far as jobs along with other quality amenities around it,” Prince George’s County Council Vice Chair Edward Burroughs III told The Washington Post.
Scrapping the planned relocation could also throw a wrench in D.C.’s plans. The departure of the FBI from the crumbling J. Edgar Hoover Building would open that prime downtown site for redevelopment from a concrete fortress into what’s been envisioned as more than 1,000 housing units plus retail and recreation spaces — a key part of the city’s broader aim to bring more residential and civic life downtown.
The initial selection of the Greenbelt site drew controversy and criticism, including from then-FBI director Christopher A. Wray and from Virginia officials who had hoped to lure the bureau to the Springfield area. Some of them alleged a conflict of interest, because the Biden administration official in charge of the decision had previously overseen real estate for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which owns the Greenbelt site.
A federal inspector general’s report last month found no conflict of interest, though it did raise some issues with the process for selecting the site.
Shortly after Trump’s speech, Maryland leaders reacted to the news with dismay.
“This is Groundhog Day all over again,” Prince George’s County Council Chair Jolene Ivey (D) said, referring to Trump’s actions to keep the FBI in D.C. during his first term when both Maryland and Virginia were vying to host the agency’s new home.
“After going through an arduous selection process the Greenbelt site was selected for obvious reasons: it’s the least expensive for tax payers, most secure for the workers and right at a Metro station,” Ivey said. “If we have to wait him out again, so be it.”
The state’s top Democratic leaders — Gov. Wes Moore, Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks and Reps. Steny H. Hoyer, Glenn Ivey, Kweisi Mfume, Jamie Raskin, Sarah Elfreth, April McClain Delaney, and Johnny Olszewski — said they would keep fighting to bring the FBI headquarters to the Old Line State.
“The FBI needs a new headquarters that meets its mission,” they said in a joint statement Friday evening. “The GSA selected Greenbelt for the new, consolidated FBI headquarters based on the fact that it is the best site and it offers the lowest price and the best value to the taxpayers. What’s more, it ensures that the FBI can move to a facility that will finally meet its mission and security needs as soon as possible. We will continue working to bring the headquarters to Maryland, following the final decision that was made to do so in 2023.”
Moore went even further to criticize Trump for politicizing the issue in a separate statement on X, saying that the Maryland site was a “build-ready, world class site” for the headquarters.
“As someone who’s worn the flag of our nation on their sleeve, I am sick and tired of President Trump playing partisan games with our national security,” Moore said in a post.
Maryland Del. Adrian Boafo (D-Prince George’s) said Trump was “trying to harm Marylanders.”
“Not on our watch,” he said in a statement. “I have confidence in Team Maryland to fight back.”
Del. Jazz Lewis (D-Prince George’s) also criticized the president for reversing course on the plan to move the FBI headquarters to the county he represents.
“The process to relocate the FBI headquarters was 10 years of careful study and review,” Lewis said in a statement. “Prince George’s County is clearly the best location to advance the Bureau’s mission. Trump continues to prove he has no idea how to govern or make smart decisions.”
Trump says FBI will stay in D.C., jeopardizing planned move to Maryland
