“Maryland and Prince George's County committed more than a decade of work to earn the FBI headquarters and pledged hundreds of millions of dollars. By blocking the Trump Administration's unlawful attempt to move the FBI to the Reagan Building and divert the funds Congress set aside for this project, the Court has cleared the path back to Greenbelt.
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A Federal Judge Blocks the Trump Administration From Scrapping the FBI’s Greenbelt Headquarters and Diverting the Money to a Building Across the Street From the White House
August 17, 2026
On August 17, 2026, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang permanently enjoined the FBI and the General Services Administration from moving the Bureau's future headquarters to the Ronald Reagan Building in downtown Washington, ruling that the agencies "exceeded their authority" and acted unlawfully under the Administrative Procedure Act. The dispute goes back to 2023, when GSA — running a competition Congress had structured in 2022 and 2023 appropriations laws — selected Greenbelt, Maryland, over sites in Springfield, Virginia, and Landover, Maryland, for a new FBI headquarters to replace the crumbling J. Edgar Hoover Building. In July 2025 the FBI and GSA announced they were abandoning that selection and would instead move the Bureau into the Reagan Building, blocks from the Hoover site. Maryland and Prince George's County sued, arguing the administration could not override a congressionally structured site selection or redirect the construction money Congress had appropriated for it. Judge Chuang agreed, holding that the statutes required GSA to pick from the three short-listed sites outside Washington. Maryland's Democratic officials — Gov. Wes Moore, Attorney General Anthony Brown, Prince George's County Executive Aisha Braveboy, and all eight Democrats in the state's congressional delegation — cast the ruling as a rebuke of an administration that treated a congressional appropriation as optional. The county has estimated the project at more than 7,500 jobs and roughly $4 billion in added GDP. The FBI pushed back hard in a statement, saying "the court has chosen to impermissibly intervene for political reasons" and that "this is not the first time courts have tried to undermine the administration in its goal to make government more cost-effective."
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“This victory is about more than a building. It is about ensuring that when Congress makes a decision, the Federal Government cannot simply ignore it because they do not like the outcome. Congress made a promise. The Trump Administration tried to break it. Now, the jobs, investment, and opportunity Marylanders deserve are within reach.
“The site is set back, and it’s a secure setting and environment and is proximate to transportation, so it’s a perfect site for the FBI.
“For years, Team Maryland has fought to bring the men and women of the FBI a headquarters that meets their mission and their needs. After a years-long, competitive, and transparent process, Greenbelt, Maryland, was selected as the site for that new headquarters, based on its merits — including its ability to provide a secure space for the Bureau while ensuring the cost-effective use of taxpayer dollars.
“The Trump Administration had no grounds to ignore this selection, or redirect even one penny that Congress specifically appropriated for construction of the competitively selected site. We will not stop fighting to fulfill our promise to the men and women of the Bureau.
“President Trump tried to take from Maryland what Maryland had already won. He failed. From the beginning, we said the decision to move the FBI headquarters to Greenbelt was final, earned, and that the Trump Administration’s attempt to overturn it was illegal and wrong for our national security. Today, the court agreed.
“Now it is time to stop the games and get to work building the world-class FBI headquarters that our public servants deserve, where it belongs: in Prince George’s County, Maryland.
“There is a rule of law, and everyone has to abide by that rule of law and it applies to everyone at every stage and in every corner of our country, including the White House.
“The FBI HQ project will be the single largest economic development project in the history of Prince George's County. It is estimated to create over 7,500 jobs and add approximately $4 billion to the GDP of the County and State.