Maryland sues Trump administration over scrapped FBI headquarters plan

The state of Maryland is suing the FBI after the bureau reneged on plans to construct a new headquarters at a selected site in Greenbelt in favor of using an existing building in downtown Washington, D.C.

The suit alleged the Trump administration ignored congressionally mandated spending plans and wrongly diverted $555 million in funding when it announced that rather than use the Greenbelt location selected after a multiyear bidding process, the FBI would instead use the Ronald Reagan Building, which had available space following the closure of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

“The [General Services Administration] (GSA) duly completed the site selection process in 2023 and selected the Greenbelt site. Congress set aside additional funds for the project after that decision. In July 2025, however, the FBI and the GSA abruptly announced that they had selected a new site, the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., and took steps to redirect the previously appropriated funds toward developing an FBI headquarters at the Ronald Reagan Building,” the state wrote in its Thursday suit.

“These actions flouted Congress’s explicit direction to choose a site from the three specified sites, as well as other specific statutory directives concerning the selection of the site and the use of the funds.”

The FBI did not respond to a request for comment. The GSA declined to comment.

The lawsuit is the latest chapter in the effort to move the FBI from its crumbling current headquarters at the J. Edgar Hoover Building in D.C., where netting has been installed to prevent the falling facade from injuring passersby.

Maryland argues the FBI cannot simply cast aside various pieces of legislation that committed the bureau to the outcome of the site selection process and gave clear directive about how federal funding for the new headquarters must be spent.

“The Trump Administration has no grounds to ignore this selection, or redirect even one penny that Congress specifically appropriated for construction of the competitively selected site,” Maryland Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks, both Democrats, said in a statement.

“Yet the Administration clearly intends to do just that, while refusing to answer basic questions around the costs to taxpayers and security of the new site, or provide additional details on their plans.” 

The state also argues the Reagan building comes with its own issues, saying it would need serious updates to meet the security standards for the FBI, while previous assessments found it needed $95 million for an upgrade to its fire protection system and $38 million to “repair of multiple cylindrical drum leaks at the building’s core.”

The multiyear site selection process weighed three locations, pitting Maryland and Virginia against each other.

Virginia has contended the process was flawed, asking for a pause after the Office of Inspector General agreed to ignite a review of the process after former FBI Director Christopher Wray sent a letter to FBI staff citing “concerns about fairness and transparency in the process” as well as the GSA's “failure to adhere to its own site selection plan.”

In announcing its plans to use the Reagan Building, FBI Director Kash Patel argued it was practical to use existing space downtown rather than construct a new federal building.

“Moving to the Ronald Reagan Building is the most cost effective and resource efficient way to carry out our mission to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution,” Patel said in July when the decision was first announced.

Van Hollen previously tried to quash the Reagan plan, inserting language into the annual Justice Department funding bill that would have blocked the move, but the text was ultimately not included in the final legislation.