Md. Sen. Chris Van Hollen to Trump on FBI relocation: 'This is a very long fight'

Ben Mause, Baltimore Sun on Jul 9, 2025

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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration wants Congress to reallocate over a billion dollars to move the FBI headquarters to the Ronald Reagan Building. Maryland’s senior senator is pushing back.

Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen held a subcommittee markup on Wednesday night to address President Donald Trump’s recent request to use roughly $1.4 billion in funds to move FBI headquarters.

The money was previously allocated for the agency’s move to a new FBI headquarters in Greenbelt, Maryland. The senator said he would offer an amendment during the full committee meeting on Thursday that would restrict use of the funds except to the Greenbelt site.

“If for any reason we don’t prevail at this juncture, this is a very long fight,” Van Hollen told The Baltimore Sun after the markup. “Presidents come and go. Congresses remain.”

Despite being the top Democrat on the subcommittee, who played a key role in authoring much of the bill with an intent for the FBI to move to Maryland, Van Hollen said he would oppose it if it’s not amended.

“It has been a long-standing position of the Appropriations Committee that we were setting aside that money with the understanding that it would go to the winner of a competition,” Van Hollen said during the markup. “That is why I’m objecting to this bill at this point.”

“This is a bigger issue than just the FBI,” Van Hollen said. “It’s the FBI building today; it could be any other project tomorrow.”

Trump announced a plan to keep FBI headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C., on July 1. It was previously planned to move to a site in Greenbelt, which won a yearslong competition over sites in Landover, Maryland, and Springfield, Virginia. The General Services Administration selected Greenbelt as the FBI’s new home in November 2023.

During the markup, Van Hollen said that despite the administration already naming the Reagan Building as the FBI’s new headquarters, it has yet to conduct studies to determine if the location meets the agency’s security or mission requirements.

“They have not shown how it’s going to meet the security requirements. They have not shown how much it’s going to cost,” Van Hollen said. “They really haven’t done any of the years of work that went into the selection process for the new FBI headquarters.”

The Trump administration said it plans to look into the security requirements, but they have yet to conduct any surveys or studies.

Sen. Jerry Moran, the Kansas Republican who chairs the subcommittee, called Van Hollen’s advocacy for the Greenbelt, “yeoman’s work.” Nevertheless, Moran and two other Republican senators voted to advance the bill to the full committee as is.

Prior to the shift in planning for the $1.4 billion, Van Hollen’s office wasn’t alerted to the plan to reprogram the allocated funds to the Reagan Building. Trump had previously criticized the plan to move the agency’s headquarters to Greenbelt.

“The Trump administration tried to kill this project during the first four years. They did not succeed in doing that,” Van Hollen said. “If the FBI starts moving into the Ronald Reagan Building, the message is: Don’t get comfortable.”

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