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Judge Blocks Trump Administration From Abandoning FBI Headquarters Plan for Maryland
A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from abandoning a Biden-era plan to relocate the FBI headquarters to suburban Maryland.
The FBI and General Services Administration had announced plans in July 2025 to move the agency’s headquarters from the J. Edgar Hoover Building in downtown Washington, D.C., to the Ronald Reagan Building blocks away, scrapping the GSA’s 2023 selection of a site in Greenbelt, Maryland.
But Judge Theodore Chuang said in his ruling Monday that the Trump administration’s move exceeded the authority of the FBI and GSA.
Chuang also agreed with Prince George’s County and the state of Maryland, which sued in November, that the FBI’s reprogramming of $555 million toward the Reagan Building move was “arbitrary and capricious” and not in accordance with law. That amount included $323 million that Congress had appropriated for the Greenbelt project.
While the Hoover Building has long been in need of major repairs, the question of where to move the FBI has been the subject of a lengthy political fight. The 2023 selection of Greenbelt was nearly 15 years in the making, according to Chuang’s ruling.
The Ronald Reagan Building was home to the now-defunct U.S. Agency for International Development. It also houses other agencies, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
In his ruling, the judge considered the economic impact on Prince George’s County and the status of the FBI’s proposed move to the Reagan Building.
“If the Reagan Building project moves forward, Plaintiffs will lose the opportunity to have the substantial economic benefits that would have a positive impact not just on individual private parties, but on the community in Prince George’s County,” Chuang wrote.
The judge also noted that the Reagan Building project remained in its early stages, meaning the immediate impact of blocking the move would be limited.
A GSA spokesperson said the judge was making a “political decision designed to undermine” President Donald Trump.
“GSA will not pursue an inferior approach in cost, speed, and value,” the spokesperson said, adding that the agency would “ensure its agency partners, including the FBI, have workspaces to best accomplish their missions on behalf of the American people.”
An FBI spokesperson also criticized the ruling, saying, “The court has chosen to impermissibly intervene for political reasons.”
The Justice Department was also contacted for comment.
Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore celebrated the ruling, saying President Trump had tried to take from Maryland what the state had already won.
“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,” Moore said.
Shortly after taking office, Trump vowed to stop the FBI headquarters from moving to what he described as a “liberal state.”
“We’re going to stop it. Not going to let that happen,” Trump said during a March 2025 speech at the Department of Justice.
The Trump administration argued in 2025 that the Greenbelt project would have cost taxpayers billions of dollars and taken years to construct.
FBI Director Kash Patel said moving the headquarters to the Ronald Reagan Building was the most cost-effective and resource-efficient way to carry out the agency’s mission.
By: CNN Newsource
August 18, 2026
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