Chris Wray blasts Biden appointee for FBI headquarter pick as others cry foul

FBI Director Christopher Wray ripped the decision-making process for the bureau’s new headquarters Thursday after a site in suburban Maryland was picked — suggesting that a top official appointed by President Biden may have improperly influenced the selection.

On Wednesday, the independent General Services Administration confirmed it had chosen Greenbelt, roughly 13 miles northeast of Washington, to be the FBI’s new home.

However, Wray told bureau employees in a blunt memo Thursday that “we have concerns about fairness and transparency in the process and GSA’s failure to adhere to its own site selection plan.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, a panel comprised of three career officials — two from the GSA and one from the FBI — had unanimously favored relocating the law enforcement agency to Springfield, Va., some 15 miles southwest of DC and closer to the bureau’s operations at the Quantico Marine Base and other national security agencies

However, Wray alleged, an official at GSA — which manages the federal government’s real estate holdings — unilaterally changed the site election criteria to boost the Greenbelt plan.

“The result of the senior executive’s one-directional changes was that Greenbelt became the most highly rated site,” he said, noting that the rejection, “while not inherently inappropriate, is exceedingly rare.”

The Journal, citing a source, identified the official as Nina Albert, a former vice president at Washington, DC’s public transportation authority who was appointed commissioner of GSA’s Public Buildings Service by Biden in July 2021.The outlet added that the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), Albert’s former employer, owns the land on which the planned Greenbelt headquarters sits.

Last month, Albert left the GSA to become the District of Columbia’s acting deputy mayor for planning and economic development.

Following the FBI director’s message, a bipartisan crew of Virginia elected officials, led by Democratic Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine as well as Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, issued a rare joint statement slamming the GSA.

“We have repeatedly condemned political interference in the independent, agency-run site selection process for a new FBI headquarters,” wrote the group, which included all 11 of Virginia’s House lawmakers. “Any fair weighing of the criteria points to a selection of Virginia. It is clear that this process has been irrevocably undermined and tainted, and this decision must be reversed.”

The GSA denied that bias played a role in the selection process.

“GSA and FBI teams have spent countless hours working closely together over many months, so we’re disappointed that the FBI Director is now making inaccurate claims directed at our agency, our employees, and our site selection plan and process,” Administrator Robin Carnahan said in a statement Thursday.

The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Since 1975, the FBI has operated out of the J. Edgar Hoover Building in downtown Washington.

The headquarters, named after the bureau’s long-serving and controversial first director, has been repeatedly ripped for its Brutalist design — incongruous with much of the architecture of the nation’s capital.

Some surveys have deemed it one of the most hideous buildings in the world.

Real estate mogul and former President Donald Trump went so far as to call it “one of the ugliest buildings in the city.”

The GSA began considering relocating the bureau’s headquarters around 2013, in response to complaints that the current building no longer fulfilled the security needs of the marquee domestic law enforcement agency.

The Trump administration pumped the brakes on relocation efforts in 2017, sparking controversy. However, an inspector general report from last month found that the then-president didn’t improperly pressure the FBI to remain in its current site.

Efforts to relocate the FBI were revived in a 2021 omnibus bill that drew criticism from some Republicans, such as Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who have clashed with the bureau over its purported treatment of the 45th president and claims of bias against conservatives.