Top Republicans Announce Probe Into FBI Headquarters Selection
Two senior House Republicans announced a probe into the controversial process that determined the location of the FBI’s new headquarters.
Republican Reps. James Comer and Jim Jordan, the chairmen of the Oversight Committee and Judiciary Committee, respectively, announced their investigation in a Friday letter, according to The Washington Post.
The probe comes after a top bureaucrat at the General Services Administration, the agency tasked with choosing a site for a building to replace the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover Building, disregarded a unanimous recommendation from a government panel and chose a piece of land owned by her former employer.
“The Committees have a duty to investigate potential conflicts of interest and misallocation of American taxpayer dollars,” Jordan told the Post.
The panel was composed of two GSA representatives and one from the FBI. Former GSA official Nina Albert overruled their recommendation and chose a site in Greenbelt, Maryland, for the new building.
FBI Director Christopher Wray criticized the selection process in an internal email, according to WTTG-TV. Wray noted that the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, Albert’s former employer, owns the Greenbelt site.
“The FBI observed that, at times, outside information was inserted into the process in a manner which appeared to disproportionately favor Greenbelt, and the justifications for the departures from the panel were varied and inconsistent,” Wray said in the email.
Wray raised concerns over “a potential conflict of interest” in selecting the site.
The GSA cited “racial equity” and proximity to public transit as reasons for choosing the Maryland location over its competitor in Springfield, Virginia, according to the Post.
Elected officials in Maryland have defended the selection process as fair, while Virginia officials have raised concerns and called for investigations, the outlet reported.
The House probe isn’t the only investigation the GSA faces over its FBI headquarters selection. The GSA inspector general launched its own investigation into the selection process on Thursday.
The GSA did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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