There is little doubt that the FBI needs to relocate outside Washington, D.C. to Greenbelt, Maryland, and rebuild both its infrastructure and leadership from the ground floor.

However, it appears that former President Donald Trump's "drain the swamp" mantra was mostly idle chatter as we find him trying to keep the police power of the state near at hand in Washington, D.C. where power lives in a bubble of progressive communist democrat politicians who have destroyed the integrity and credibility of the FBI.

Ugly is as ugly does…

For many people. the current J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building in Washington, D.C., is an eyesore and an example of “brutalist” architecture.”

Background...

TRUMP’S INTERFERENCE IN THE FBI HEADQUARTERS RELOCATION PLAN

A plan to relocate the FBI headquarters to the Washington, D.C., suburbs was surprisingly scrapped in favor of the far costlier option of rebuilding at its existing site — which happens to sit a block away from the Trump International Hotel. American Oversight is investigating what influence the White House and the Trump Organization might have had over a decision that ensures a huge city block remains free of competition for the president’s hotel.

For more than a decade, the FBI sought congressional funding to move its headquarters from the deteriorating J. Edgar Hoover Building in downtown Washington, D.C., to the suburbs — a cost-saving plan that would address serious security concerns and free up prime downtown real estate. So when the Trump administration canceled the project in July 2017 and then seven months later announced plans to rebuild at the downtown site, which sits a block away from the Trump International Hotel, eyebrows rose.

In late summer 2018, after reports surfaced that President Donald Trump was personally involved in that decision, the inspector general of the General Services Administration found that GSA Administrator Emily Murphy may have misled Congress earlier in the year about the extent of Trump’s involvement — and that the agency had not accurately estimated the costs of the rebuilding. Read more at American Oversight.

Hotel sold (May 2022) ...

Trump sells Washington hotel to Miami-based investor group

The lease to the Washington, D.C., hotel run by Donald Trump's family company while he was president, a symbol of his power to GOP politicians who gathered there and of corruption to his critics, has been sold by his family company to a Miami-based investor fund.

The Trump Organization said Wednesday that it had completed the sale of a long-term lease of the Trump International Hotel to CGI Merchant Group of Miami for what it described as a record price per room for the city. Sources close to the deal demanding anonymity to discuss the private transaction have said that the price was $375 million, handing the Trump family business perhaps as much as $100 million in profit.

The new owners planned to remove the Trump name from the facade and rebrand the hotel a Waldorf Astoria. Workers were seen removing signage from the hotel Wednesday night. <Read more at NPR.>

Trump sold his DC hotel. GOP spending disappeared.

In June the Waldorf Astoria opened for business in downtown D.C.’s Old Post Office Building, replacing the Trump International Hotel, which for five years served as an assembly point for Republican officials, lobbyists and anyone who wanted to buy Donald Trump’s attention. Despite the fact that the Waldorf is in the same building and kept public and private spaces remarkably the same, political spending at the new hotel all but disappeared when compared to the years when it was owned by a sitting president.

From its opening in June to the midterm elections, Republican officials, candidates and fundraising committees have spent less than $2,000 at the Waldorf Astoria, according to FEC data. In the same five-month window during the 2018 midterms, Republicans spent more than 400 times that amount with $867K in disbursements to the Trump Hotel. After the property opened in 2016 Republicans spent $266K in its first six months alone. This is only a portion of the spending that took place at the time, as a number of wealthy Republican donors and dark money groups also spent money at Trump’s hotel, without any requirement to disclose that spending to the public. Read more at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Bottom line...

A slip of the tongue? A nod to his Miami investor group? Or just normal Trump babbling?

No matter. The FBI still needs new leadership and a new building--and this is the perfect time to pitch Trump on both issues.

We are so screwed.

-- Steve