The FBI will move its headquarters to a building complex blocks away from its current home in Washington, the agency announced on Tuesday, setting up an end to a drawn-out battle over the agency’s new home.
The announcement officially scraps a plan approved in 2023 to move the FBI to Greenbelt, Maryland after lawmakers from Virginia and Maryland battled intensely to host the bureau. President Donald Trump signaled earlier this year his intent to keep the new headquarters in Washington, even as the agency abandons the iconic but run-down J. Edgar Hoover Building.
The agency’s new home, the Ronald Reagan Building complex, previously included the U.S. Agency for International Development among its tenants before the administration gutted the agency earlier this year. The building also houses the U.S. Customs and Border Protection along with other government agencies and private businesses.
“We are ushering FBI Headquarters into a new era and providing our agents of justice a safer place to work. 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,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement.
It’s not yet clear when the FBI would move into its new headquarters.
The fate of the new FBI headquarters was the subject of acrimony between the two states surrounding Washington. Virginia lawmakers fought to bring the new headquarters closer to the FBI’s Quantico training site, but lost out to a strong push from Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and other Maryland lawmakers to bring the FBI to Greenbelt, which is just north of Washington proper.
Shortly after Trump returned to the White House, he pledged to block the FBI’s proposed move to Maryland, which he called “a liberal state,” during a speech at the Department of Justice.
“We’re going to build another big FBI building right where it is, which would have been the right place, because the FBI and the DOJ have to be near each other,” Trump said in March.
Virginia’s Democratic senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine — who seemingly lost out on the headquarters sweepstakes in 2023 — condemned Tuesday’s announcement, saying it “isn’t a plan, it’s a punt.”
And Maryland Gov. Wes Moore joined the Maryland Democratic congressional delegation in issuing a statement condemning the decision to pull the new headquarters out of their home state, committing to “fighting back against this proposal with every tool we have.”
“The FBI deserves a headquarters that meets their security and mission needs — and following an extensive, thorough, and transparent process, Greenbelt, Maryland, was selected as the site that best meets those requirements,” the statement said. “Not only was this decision final, the Congress appropriated funds specifically for the purpose of the new, consolidated campus to be built in Maryland.”