Maryland files lawsuit over FBI headquarters relocation plan

On November 6, the state of Maryland and Prince George’s county filed a lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and General Services Administration (GSA). Kash Patel, Pamela Bondi, and Michael Rigas are listed as the defendants.

The lawsuit is in regard to the FBI’s proposed relocation from the Hoover Building to the Reagan Building. It comes a few months after the FBI announced its plans to vacate its Brutalist, Washington, D.C. headquarters—the J. Edgar Hoover Building designed by Charles F. Murphy—and move into the nearby Ronald Reagan Building, designed by James Ingo Freed of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners.

This, according to Maryland government officials, is at odds with efforts dating back to 2011 between the FBI and the state.

The FBI had been weighing three sites in Landover and Greenbelt, Maryland; and Springfield, Virginia, for a new FBI headquarters. In 2022, two separate public laws were enacted that directed the GSA to choose one of the sites, and Congress to allocate over $1.1 billion to fund the project.

A site in Greenbelt, Maryland, was chosen for the new FBI headquarters in 2023. The agreement also dictated that a satellite office located within Washington, D.C. limits be identified to accommodate up to 1,000 FBI employees, so as to maintain proximity to the DOJ. An architect wasn’t commissioned for the project.

Criteria for the site was dictated by the following parameters: it be federally owned, less than 2 miles from a Metro station, within 2.5 miles of the Capital Beltway, and meet Interagency Security Committee Level V standards.

At a press briefing, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said yesterday: “We are asking the court to stop the unlawful selection of the Reagan Building, prevent the diversion of congressionally appropriated funds and ensure the federal government, the Trump administration, follows the law.”

All parties agree the Hoover Building is inadequate for servicing the FBI: Crumbling concrete, persistent water infiltration, lackluster security features, and other shortcomings make for a poor working environment, both Patel and the state of Maryland argue. But that’s beside the point.

Plaintiffs claim Patel, Bondi, Rigas, and the agencies they run, are trying to “unlawfully sabotage a multiyear collaborative effort to develop a new FBI headquarters complex in Greenbelt, Maryland” and “unlawfully divert funding that Congress designated for that project.”

When the FBI and GSA changed course in July, the appropriated funds allocated for the move to Maryland were instead redirected toward moving the FBI headquarters into the Reagan Building. Maryland claims this is in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act and argues it will deprive Prince George’s county of “transformative benefits” that would be had if the FBI moves into its borders. They ask that the FBI abandon its plans to relocate into the Reagan building.

“Maryland is going to fight this thing with everything that we have because in Maryland, we do not bend the knee,” Governor Wes Moore said. “So, if Donald Trump thinks that we are going to roll over when he tries to make life worse for our law enforcement, he better think twice, and we’ll see him in court.”