According to an email acquired by NBC News, FBI Director Christopher Wray expressed worry about “a potential conflict of interest” in the selection of the bureau’s new headquarters in Maryland.
The General Services Administration revealed on Thursday that the FBI’s new headquarters will be in Greenbelt, roughly 13 miles northeast of Washington, putting an end to a lengthy and highly charged site selection process. Springfield, Virginia, and Landover, Maryland were the other candidates.
Wray wrote to staffers in an unusually direct letter that the FBI has “concerns about fairness and transparency in the process, as well as GSA’s failure to adhere to its own site selection plan,” adding that a senior GSA executive overruled a board decision and chose land owned by the executive’s previous employer, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.
Initially, a three-member panel found that Springfield, Virginia, was the ideal location. Wray stated that the choice of a political appointee supervising the process to reject career officials’ “unanimous” advice was not “‘inherently inappropriate,’ but it is ‘exceedingly rare.'”
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“In particular, the FBI observed that, at times, outside information was inserted into the process in a manner which appeared to disproportionately favor Greenbelt, and the justifications for the departures from the panel were varied and inconsistent,” Wray stated in a press release.
Virginia lawmakers shared Wray’s complaints about the process and expressed displeasure after years of battling their Maryland colleagues to host the new headquarters. Some demanded an inquiry and that the GSA’s decision be reversed.
“It is clear that this process has been irrevocably undermined and tainted, and this decision must now be reversed,” said the state’s two senators, eight House members, and Gov. Glenn Youngkin in a joint statement.
Senator Mark Warner, D-Va., has stated that he plans to pursue an investigation by the Inspector General because “this process has been rotten.”
“Yes, there should be an IG investigation, and we will request one,” Warner told NBC News. “But my hope is that the administration realizes this process has been a shambles.” “And, you know, the folks who work at the FBI deserve better answers; the American taxpayers deserve better answers.”
