Trump administration plans to demolish FBI building
Renovations for the J. Edgar Hoover building instead of relocation.
One would not be faulted for wondering if the FBI’s apparent role in Dossier Gate led the federal government to amend plans for the agency’s offices.
The Trump administration jettisoned a long-standing plan to build a new FBI headquarters in Maryland or Virginia in favor of demolishing the current building and replacing it with a new facility at the same address.
The proposal is a dramatic about-face from the stance the government took under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. For years, the General Services Administration, which oversees federal real estate, had insisted to lawmakers and the public that the FBI required a suburban Washington campus where it could consolidate 11,000 FBI personnel in a modern and secure facility.
Instead, on Monday the Trump administration proposed keeping about 8,300 FBI headquarters staff in the Washington area, split between a new headquarters to be built in place of the aging J. Edgar Hoover Building and Quantico, Va., home to the bureau’s training academy.
The new development followed an announcement this summer that the GSA and the FBI were nixing the funding search for a new headquarters, citing a significant funding gap between the $1.4 billion requested in the 2017 budget versus the $523 million received.
Maryland officials are less than thrilled with the new proposal.
Local lawmakers blasted the move on Monday — calling it “inconceivable” — after it was proposed by the FBI and General Services Administration.
“I’ve never seen a decision handled with more mismanagement and more negligence,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told News4.
Obviously, these lawmakers have never seen The Princess Bride.
Maryland Senator Steny Hoyer, Minority Whip, was also quite upset.
A statement from Hoyer’s office at the time noted that two of the three finalist areas for the new headquarters were in Prince George’s County, which is part of his district.
Hoyer was similarly critical on Monday, saying, “This sudden and unexpected decision by the Trump Administration raises serious questions about what or who could have motivated such a decision.”
“We must get to the bottom of why the Trump Administration reached this decision,” he said.
I suggest Hoyer read Legal Insurrection more often, if he wonders why the President would like to restructure the FBI both within and without. The Minority Whip might also be shocked to discover that many Americans are happy with the new building proposal.
@marklevinshow President Trump had a brilliant idea. Tear down the FBI building and I say build the new one in the cornfields of Iowa. That would put a crimp in the deep state
— cherry looker (@LookerCherry) February 13, 2018
The new FBI building should be named after Trump! #hannity #maddow #cnn https://t.co/aIYw6L57bM
— SB2017 (@SPMB13) February 13, 2018
President Trump’s budget requests money to build a new FBI building.
He truly wants to remove every last remnant of the Comey cabal— ????????ErasingBarry???? (@k_ovfefe) February 12, 2018
However, I suspect that sensible budgeting ideas, better allocation of resources, and the desire to keep FBI staff closer to the nation’s capital are also important elements in the decision making. A quote from the Godfather II seems apt here:
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Comments
Great Decision!
Also I believe it is greatly symbolic.
Trump has a way of making us have those “national discussions” that Democrats always scream for and they scream ‘SHUT UP” when we try to engage.
I’ve notice that with the Food Stamp program he recently proposed. One of those things we never really address.
Social media and comment sections are blowing up with people on both sides actually having a “national discussion” about it. And the people who want to expose the massive corruption in the current program are well armed with facts and figures.
VA and MD; bad compromise. Either keep them under close surveillance in DC, or exile them to Alaska. Even better, the Marianas Trench.
The correct answer is, “that’s none of your business. He’s the president and he’s entitled to make this decision, even for political reasons if he likes.”
Assuming no random district judge disagrees.
“…what or who could have motivated such a decision.”
Just guess here, but I’d say Trump saw the estimates
Not only that, but President Trump is a REAL ESTATE expert. He’s probably looked as the costs and decided that razing the current building and replacing it is better that buying land for a new building and have ANOTHER property for GSA to manage at a dead loss to the tax payers.
Somebody’s Democrat pal/donor isn’t going to get that huge selling price for the land now. Too bad, so sad.
I’m curious how much the taxpayer will save on the land purchase alone.
Put them in a tent city until construction is complete. If it’s good enough for the troops, it’s good enough for the FBI.
Oh, that’s too cruel. At least house them in single wide trailers with no air conditioning and make them use porta-potties.
FEMA trailers.
The stench of obama and klinton: ruining the fine reputation of the greatest law enforcement agency in the world is just one part of the filthy their legacy.
It took a hundred years to burnish the reputation of the FBI, and one election of a treasonous fraud to destroy it. Swamp Sessions continues to assist.
Let it be comey’s and his gang’s legacy too. In prison.
Adjacent to Groom Lake in Nevada would be perfect, and we already own the land.
Leslie, Steny Hoyer is not a Senator. Thank God.
And who cares what that jerk Van Hollen thinks.
Sadly, they are two of my state’s representatives.
To be honest, the FBI building was a true dangerous dump, and was going to need torn down anyway. The only questions were A) Will the FBI move back in after the new building is up and B) How much graft can we pocket?
I think the FBI looked at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau building with all that marble and glitz, quietly murmuring to themselves “Mine, mine, mine…” Moving where they wanted to go was the only way to build it, complete with fountains, flamingos, and frills. Guess they’re just going to have to get used to a standard government building after all.
They should demolish the building with comey, obama and klinton in it.
The Maryland AG is going to file suit in federal court and the judge will rule that the new plan is unconstitutional because it’s politically motivated. You heard it here first.
You’re exactly right. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Hoyer and Pelosi ask Mueller to investigate this decision as it could lead to yet another baseless obstruction (of graft) charge.
Tear it down. Salt the earth. Surround the site with snipers to take out any visiting former FBI employees. In the center build a set of high gallows for use as needed.
I would think the FBI could rent sufficient space in the Obama Shrine complex in Chicago.
Is the Murrah Building site in OKC still available?
Maybe the FBI expected a building like the CFPB. (What a waste).
Prediction : a federal judge will rule that President Trump cannot tear down and rebuild the fbi building; it proves obstruction of justice. ????????????????
Oh Noes!
Breaking FYI:
“Obama’s Senior Policy Adviser for Education
…..Arrested and Prosecuted For Taking Upskirt Pictures of Unknowing Women at a Metro Station…
Somehow We’re Just Learning This Over a Year Later
News of these pictures seem to have gone into the same file as the pictures of Obama with Louis Farrakhan….”
http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=373855
That’s always been the deal: ‘you can be a perv, so long as you blindly support us on the left.’
Not a bad deal for a perv.
I have an even better solution to the Febbie building dilemma. Kick the Unholy Nations out and let Febbies take over the building.
Maybe the building upgrade will give them new computers which are compatible with today’s technology, instead of the old dinosaurs they are currently using.
Demolish it and put up a federal prison to house corrupt FBI officials.
Will he leave senior FBI management inside?
I think that Ocean Grove NJ would be a great site. They already have the tent locations. A bureau of real true dicks like the FBI needs to be field men and field woman, not posh pensionaries ensconced in a beltway palacio. Tents are good. Just like George Washington lived in for ten years or so.
why are they even going to build a new building, doesn’t GSA have either empty or under utilized building already.
Mr President, while you are at it, does the Library of Congress really need a paramilitary SWAT Team that could hold down Fallujah?
Does the EPA, DOI, DOEn. DOEd, EPA, USPO, IRS. FEC. FAA. DOC. Etc? They all do.
Use a nuke about Wednesday morning at 9 O’Clock. On a work day. With the DOJ at an Ethics seminar and the FBI studying a mandatory course on the Bill of Rights.
Steny needn’t have gotten his panties in a bind. There was never any chance they’d actually move to MD. Prince George’s County is basically Haiti, if they had Section 8 housing and food stamps.
No one in their right mind would have built there rather than in Virginia.
No one in the FBI would have wanted to live anywhere near the new facility if they had built in MD.
Trump also ridiculed the London Embassy sale and relocation and used that fiasco as a reason not to travel to London for the ribbon cutting. Why sell prime real estate to cronies only to by sub-par real estate at inflated prices from other cronies and continue to screw the tax payers?