The proposed FBI headquarters in Greenbelt has a long list of detractors, and most of the Republican candidates for president, including the front-runner, are now among them. Not that they’re on the same page.
In a post on his Truth Social platform Dec. 30, former President Donald Trump called for a new FBI headquarters in downtown D.C., instead of the Prince George’s County site that was chosen by the General Services Administration in November. The new 7,500-employee facility would replace the crumbling J. Edgar Hoover building on Pennsylvania Avenue NW.
“The FBI Headquarters should not be moved to a far away location, but should stay right where it is, in a new and spectacular building, in the best location in our now crime ridden and filthy dirty, graffiti scarred, Capital,” Trump said in the post, taking aim at the District. “They should be involved in bringing back D.C., not running away from it, especially the violent crime.”
The years-long process to replace the aging Hoover building was halted in 2017 during the Trump administration, a move Democrats criticized as politically motivated, but a Justice Department investigation released last year found no undue influence. The search was restarted by the Biden administration in 2022 after Congress, led by Maryland Democrats, inserted language in the federal budget directing the GSA to choose between Greenbelt and Landover in Prince George’s and Springfield in Fairfax County.
