FBI Calls for Reversal of Decision to Relocate Headquarters

(TotalConservative.com) – FBI Director Christopher Wray and numerous Virginia officials are calling for a decision to move the FBI headquarters to Maryland to be reversed after a conflict of interest in how the site was selected came to light.

Politico obtained an internal FBI message from Wray published on Thursday, November 9th where he called the decision to relocate the headquarters to Maryland biased. He pointed out that the three-member panel concluded that the best site was in Virginia, but that somehow a single individual was able to override their decision and approve the Maryland site instead.

The panel was made up of three people, two from the Government Services Administration, which manages government property, and one from the FBI. A political appointee at GSA ultimately decided to override the panel’s recommendation and chose the Maryland site.

Wray pointed out that both sites are fine for their purposes but that the conflict of interest was the issue. The appointee who decided to go against the panel’s recommendation was later identified as Nina Albert. Albert worked for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority 2016-2021, which currently owns the land the FBI would need to acquire for the project.

Albert now works as D.C.’s acting deputy mayor of planning and economic development. She did not respond to a request for comment.

Virginia lawmakers were incensed by Wray’s remarks and demanded the Virginia site be chosen instead, an effort they had extensively lobbied for across both parties. Multiple Virginia politicians, including Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), Democrat Sens. Tim Kaine, and Mark Warner, published a joint statement in which they said the site selection process was “irrevocably tainted” and must be reversed.

GSA rejected Wray’s analysis, claiming that the mere suggestion of impropriety is unfounded in a published statement. They said the selection of the Maryland site was “fully consistent” with all relevant laws and procedures. They further counted Wray’s claims by publishing another letter that outlined how the conflict of interest concerns were already addressed.