About 8,300 FBI headquarters staff would remain in the Washington, D.C., area, split between a new headquarters replacing the J. Edgar Hoover Building and the FBI training center in Quantico, Va., under a Trump administration proposal, The Washington Post reported Feb. 12.
Another 2,300 would move out of the area along with their facilities: data center and administrative staff to Pocatello, Idaho; criminal justice services, data center and biometrics employees to Clarksburg, W.Va.; explosive analytics workers and staff to Huntsville, Ala.
The administration would provide almost $2.2 billion from its infrastructure plan to add to funds already reserved for a new building, but the new money would have to be appropriated by Congress.
In July 2017, the administration cited lack of funding in canceling a plan to offset some of the cost of a new suburban Washington campus by trading the Hoover Building to the winning bidder.
Government officials, Congress and Washington-area real estate companies had spent more than a decade and millions of dollars working out plans to move the FBI out of the badly outdated and crumbling Hoover Building, the Post reported July 10, 2017. It was at more than full capacity, forcing the government to lease spaces across the D.C. region to house the overflow workers.
Backers of the suburban campus expressed shock at the new plan. “This sudden and unexpected decision by the Trump administration raises serious questions about what or who could have motivated such a decision,” said House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, a Democrat from Maryland, home of two of three sites considered for the suburban facility.
President Trump has been highly critical of the FBI and its leaders. In May 2017, Trump fired then-FBI Director James Comey, and later tweeted that the bureau’s reputation was “in tatters” as a result. A target of many Trump Twitter taunts, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe stepped down Jan. 29 after having announced he would retire this March.
Read more in The Washington Post.
