FBI Director Christopher A. Wray’s unusually sharp criticism came in an internal email to agency employees that was obtained by the Associated Press. It was the latest twist in a vigorous competition among jurisdictions in the national capital region to land America’s premier law enforcement agency.
The General Services Administration selected Greenbelt, Md., a Washington suburb, as the home for a new facility to replace the crumbling J. Edgar Hoover Building, which is just blocks from the White House. Wray said his objections were about the selection process rather than the Greenbelt site itself.
The GSA, which manages the government’s real estate, said that site about 13 miles northeast of Washington was the cheapest one with the best access to public transit. But Wray asserted in his note that the choice came after a GSA executive overruled a board and picked land owned by a former employer.
Democratic Sen. Mark R. Warner of Virginia, which also vied for the project, called for an investigation.
“I had felt that this has been grossly political with efforts to try to change the criteria, but I was astounded when we found out that three career officials unanimously picked Virginia and a political appointee overturned it,” he said. “Clearly, there needs to be an inspector general investigation.”
In a joint statement, Virginia’s elected leaders called for the decision to be reversed, asserting that their state’s site remains the best choice under “any fair weighing of the criteria.”
But GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan stood behind the agency’s work, saying officials followed all laws and ethical considerations.
“Any suggestion that there was inappropriate interference is unfounded,” she said.
Principal White House Deputy Press Secretary Olivia Dalton also defended the process. She did not comment on whether President Biden had any direct involvement in the final site decision.
“I can tell you it was a fair and transparent process,” Dalton told reporters on Air Force One as Biden traveled to Illinois on Thursday.
“The 61 acres in Greenbelt is both the lowest cost to taxpayers, most transportation options for FBI workers, and we had the most assurances about the expeditious means with which a project could get underway,” she said.
Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said that Wray had previously indicated he would prefer to stay in Washington, but that experts had said a suburban location would be a better choice for the FBI’s long-term security.
“To say somehow this process was skewed is wrong,” Hoyer said.
Maryland and Virginia had long been vying to land the agency’s headquarters. Virginia is already home to the FBI Academy.
Congress last year directed the administration to consider three sites for the new headquarters: Greenbelt and Landover, Md., and Springfield, Va.
A board that included GSA and FBI representatives unanimously agreed on Springfield, Wray wrote in the internal email. But a senior GSA executive changed course and went with Greenbelt, the FBI director said.
“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,” he wrote.
The land in Greenbelt is owned by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which once employed the senior GSA executive in question, according to Wray’s email.
“Despite our engagement with GSA over the last two months on these issues, our concerns about the process remain unresolved,” Wray wrote. “There are still a lot of open questions, and we’ve still got a long way to go.”
Carnahan, the head of the GSA, said that her agency had listened to the FBI, and that “at every step, the GSA team has worked to incorporate the FBI’s feedback and appropriately address their concerns, including conducting a legal review of each concern raised.”
Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.