The current FBI headquarters building in Washington, D.C., has been targeted for replacement for years. (Photo by Bryan P. Sears/Maryland Matters)
Maryland officials who have fought political and legal battles in their yearslong effort to land the new FBI headquarters in Greenbelt now face a daunting new challenge — geography.
In a speech Friday at the Department of Justice, President Donald Trump (R) said he would stop plans to build the new FBI headquarters in Maryland because it’s “three hours away” from the agency’s current site at 935 Pennsylvania Ave. NW in Washington.
In November 2023, the General Services Administration picked Greenbelt in Prince George’s County as the site of the next home for the FBI and its 7,500 employees. The other two choices were in Landover, also in Prince George’s, and Springfield, Virginia.
All three sites are in or on the Capital Beltway. Google Maps show the Greenbelt site to be 10 to 11 miles from the current FBI headquarters as the crow flies, and about 16 miles by car.
“They were going to build an FBI headquarters three hours away in Maryland, a liberal state,” Trump said. “But that has no bearing on what I’m about to say. We’re going to stop it. I’m not going to let that happen.”
Trump instead called for a new FBI headquarters to be built on its current site, which is in the same block on Pennsylvania Avenue as the Justice Department. The agencies need to be close to work together, a lesson Trump said he learned during his “persecution” by the two, which “in my case worked together for bad purposes.”
The FBI comments came during an hourlong speech, during which Trump accused the administration of former President Joe Biden (D) of using the Justice Department to go after him and his supporters.
While it may have been an aside, Maryland officials took Trump’s comments seriously.
The state remains locked in a battle with Virginia representatives, who continue to charge that the process to select the Maryland site was flawed, especially after a federal inspector general’s report released last month found fault with the process. However, the report never stated there was a problem with the Greenbelt site.
Gov. Wes Moore (D) and all the Democrats in the state’s congressional delegation – Sens. Angela Alsobrooks and Chris Van Hollen and Reps. Steny Hoyer, Glenn Ivey, Kweisi Mfume, Jamie Raskin, Sarah Elfreth, April McClain Delaney and Johnny Olszewski Jr. – said in a joint statement that they plan to keep fighting for the project.
“The FBI needs a new headquarters that meets its mission. 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,” their statement said.
“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, in a separate social media post, said that moving the FBI project out of Maryland is “a reckless move that endangers our national security.”
The Maryland House on Friday voted 100-36 for House Bill 1078, which would require that the governor include $200 million annually in the stater budget “for site redevelopment and to improve transportation infrastructure for the Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters relocation project.” The measure was sponsored by Prince George’s Democratic Dels. Nicole Williams, Anne Healey and Ashanti Martinez, whose district includes the Greenbelt site.
The district’s senator, Sen. Alonzo Washington (D), sponsored a companion Senate version of the bill that was referred to that chamber’s Rules Committee last month.
House Majority Whip Jazz Lewis (D-Prince George’s) said Friday that Trump doesn’t have the authority to just stop a project because he says so. Lewis said the federal Administrative Procedure Act would be the main reason to make a change on a project that’s based on national security.
“When he [Trump] made his announcement, he said what his reasons were. He said he did not want the FBI going to Maryland, a liberal state three hours away,” Lewis said Friday evening, after the House floor session in Annapolis.
“He doesn’t know geography, for one, because Greenbelt is 15 minutes outside the city. Besides the point, his policy change is for partisan reasons, not national security,” Lewis said.