- Monday, November 20, 2023

The Biden administration just announced plans to build a new $3.5 billion headquarters for the FBI in Greenbelt, Maryland, just outside of Washington.

While a new headquarters has long been discussed, the cost and new location are unexpected, irrational and suspicious. FBI leaders have voiced concerns that the decision was made behind closed doors by a Biden political appointee who worked for years for an organization that will benefit significantly from the new site location. 

She has since left the administration for greener pastures, just in time to avoid congressional scrutiny. How convenient.

In a ham-fisted attempt to justify this decision, the Biden administration claims it was made based not on cost or other rational considerations but instead to promote “equity.” Again, how convenient.

To both sides of the aisle, this looks like a taxpayer-funded handout from the president to his political allies in Maryland. Even the director of the FBI, who has been begging Congress for a new headquarters for years, has voiced strong opposition to the Maryland location. In fact, Director Christopher Wray has publicly alleged that the decision may have been made in violation of established procedure, even hinting it may have been made in violation of federal law.

Congress must exercise its oversight power to get to the bottom of this latest billion-dollar Biden administration scandal, which it is already poised to do. But in the process, Congress has an opportunity to do something of even greater importance for the country and the future of the FBI: Consolidate, reorganize and improve the structure of the FBI’s headquarters.

From 2017 to 2021, I was assigned to FBI headquarters as an FBI supervisory special agent. This included a stint at the National Counterterrorism Center in Virginia and more than two years at Hoover, the FBI’s current headquarters in downtown Washington. Apart from its historic relevance and proximity to the Justice Department, which oversees the FBI, and to Congress and the White House, the building has little to offer. It’s falling apart.

But instead of building a new $3.5 headquarters in the high-cost, high-traffic D.C. area, it makes far more sense to use this opportunity to scale down the size of FBI headquarters by consolidating duplicative sections and disbanding unproductive ones — while keeping a small footprint of senior leaders in the Washington region.

Scaling down and consolidating would ensure the FBI remains accessible by the Justice Department, Congress and the president, as required under law while relocating other parts of headquarters to other states where they can perform their work at a lower cost and in better conditions. Such locations might include Quantico, Virginia, for some units. This is where the FBI Academy and laboratory already are.

In addition, Huntsville, Alabama, would be an ideal location for many other sections currently housed in Hoover, as House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan recently suggested. The FBI has already relocated a significant number of sections to Huntsville in recent years. It should double down on that effort.

Locating the headquarters of a large and consequential agency like the FBI in Maryland is an effective way for President Biden to reward political allies. It is also a good way to try to manipulate the culture of an organization. 

Planting the headquarters of the FBI in an area that leans far to the left means that not only will the $3.5 billion make its way directly into the hands of folks likely to vote for the president’s political party, but it also increases the likelihood of supporters being included in the thousands of permanent employees that work at FBI headquarters.

At the end of the day, this latest billion-dollar Biden administration scandal gives Congress the opportunity to take a hard look at FBI headquarters and, using its power of the purse, help chart a new course for the FBI that would not only benefit the FBI itself but more importantly, the American people.

• Stewart Whitson is a former FBI supervisory special agent and the legal director at the Foundation for Government Accountability.

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