President Trump meets with GSA Administrator Emily Murphy and other administration officials on Jan. 24.

President Trump meets with GSA Administrator Emily Murphy and other administration officials on Jan. 24. White House

New Evidence Suggests Trump’s Coordination With GSA on FBI Headquarters Plan

Photo and emails following Oval Office meeting challenge GSA chief’s testimony to Congress.

Newly released emails and an official White House photo provide evidence suggesting that President Trump himself directed the General Services Administration and the FBI to modify a years-in-the-works plan to move the FBI’s downtown Washington headquarters.

A letter sent Thursday by Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and four other Democrats, challenged GSA Administrator Emily Murphy on her congressional testimony that she did not discuss the decision to change the relocation plan with the White House.

“Many years before becoming president, Donald Trump expressed interest in the FBI headquarters moving out of Washington, D.C., so he could acquire the land on Pennsylvania Avenue and redevelop the property, which is directly across the street from the Trump International Hotel,” the Democratic lawmakers wrote, with copies to Republican committee chairmen. “However, after he was sworn in as president—and became ineligible as a federal employee to obtain the property—he reportedly became ‘dead opposed’ to the government selling the property, which would have allowed commercial developers to compete directly with the Trump Hotel.”

Some of the conflicts in the record were documented this August in a report from the GSA inspector general, but Murphy has maintained that her April 2018 testimony to Congress about GSA’s plan to rebuild the HQ downtown—released in February—was accurate and that the decision was based on cost considerations.

The IG has now provided Cummings with additional documents, and The New York Times, using the Freedom of Information Act, on Wednesday published for the first time a Jan. 24, 2018, official White House photo showing Murphy and FBI Director Christopher Wray in the Oval Office. The documents contain references to “the project the president wants” and show that top GSA officials promised to “hold our ground” on this proposal “per the president’s instructions” to not sell the downtown property to a commercial developer.

As noted by Cummings, the IG reported that Murphy pushed back against abandoning the suburban location plan, and retained an impression for a while that the relocation would continue. Wray is quoted as saying that if the relocation would not produce cost savings, he’d prefer to remain at the J. Edgar Hoover building, but is “not opposed to a suburban campus site.”

Murphy was also reported to have asked the IG to remove references to her April 2018 testimony from her August 2018 report, which IG Carol Ochoa declined to do.

Internal emails describe the aftermath of the cancellation of procurement for the FBI move announced in July 2017, without an alternative plan in place. GSA Public Buildings Service Commissioner Dan Mathews, after a Dec. 20, 2017, meeting at the White House with Chief of Staff John Kelly and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, emailed FBI Chief Financial Officer Richard Haley saying, “The meeting took an unexpected turn as soon as we got there.”

Further emails from Mathews asked the White House to put something in writing on a plan to demolish the J. Edgar Hoover building (built in 1974) and construct a new headquarters on the same site, saying, “Ideally I think it would first recap the oval meeting with what POTUS directed everyone to do then ask Emily (GSA) to execute POTUS’s orders,” according to Cummings’ letter.

On Jan. 25, 2018, the GSA administrator’s chief of staff, Brennan Hart, emailed Joseph Lai, special assistant to President Trump, “confirming that the decision to reverse the relocation plan occurred at the White House meeting,” according to the members’ interpretation. Hart wrote: “The president was briefed yesterday on this by the GSA administrator, deputy attorney general and FBI Director and signed off on this path forward.”

The 2017 decision to cancel the well-advanced solicitation of construction firms for bids on building a new campus in one of three sites in suburban Maryland and Virginia irked House members and senators in the Washington area. The current plan to rebuild at the same Pennsylvania Avenue facility “could cost hundreds of millions of dollars more than the long-term relocation plan, but it would accommodate 2,306 fewer employees,” Cummings protested.

“President Trump should have avoided all interactions or communications relating to the FBI headquarters project to prevent both real and perceived conflicts of interest,” Cummings wrote in the letter co-signed by Reps. Gerry Connolly, D-Va.; Dina Titus, D-Nev.; Mike Quigley, D-Ill.; and Peter DeFazio, D-Ore. “He should not have played any role in a determination that bears directly on his own financial interests with the Trump Hotel. The General Services Administration also should have taken steps to wall off the decision from improper influence.”

A GSA spokeswoman said in a statement:

As previously testified by GSA and the FBI, the leadership team at the FBI made the decision to keep its headquarters at the current Pennsylvania Avenue location. A number of emails referenced in today’s congressional letter are taken out of context and refer to the project's funding approach, not the location decision. Suggestions that those emails indicate presidential involvement in the location decision are inaccurate. GSA stands by its testimony and the cost analysis proposed in the joint revised plan submitted to Congress in February.

The lawmakers asked Murphy to provide a timetable and all relevant documents by Nov. 1.

Separately, the story behind the Trump administration’s handling of the FBI headquarters will be among the top priorities in the coming months for American Oversight, a nonprofit legal group that focuses on agency transparency. At a Wednesday briefing with reporters, the group’s leaders said they have been actively filing FOIA requests for documents on the canceled move.

This story has been updated with a statement from GSA

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.