Former President Trump stated this week that he disagrees with efforts by certain Republicans to purge the swamp by relocating the FBI’s headquarters to Alabama and that he preferred for the FBI’s new facility to be situated directly next to the Dept. of Justice.
When asked just how the FBI could be changed, Trump made the comments while in an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News.
“Republicans, for instance, have suggested moving the headquarters from Washington to Alabama,” she added. “Good thinking?”
“So,” he said, “I had a proposal to demolish the FBI building and construct a brand-new structure in Washington given that I believe that the FBI needs to be kind of close to the DOJ if they are all trustworthy individuals. You know, I mean, they would like to relocate it to another state and say, ‘We’re going to relocate it to Virginia, create this thing.’ If you talk to environmentalists, the traffic was quite heavy, etc., therefore it was going to be expensive.”
According to Bartiromo, the FBI is asking for around $4 billion for the new building, which may wind up being larger than the Pentagon.
He remarked, “They want it to be this enormous facility off in the distance. I loved the thought of it being near the Justice Dept. because, in my opinion, they work well together and they had the property and everything. There would be some commotion during construction if you renovated the building or built a new one there, but not much. That is what I preferred. I had planned to do that. Additionally, it would have been much cheaper. However, I appreciate that the FBI is partly tethered to the Justice Department. I believe it was, and I’ll tell you that the FBI personnel agreed.”
Trump then clarified that despite his affinity for Alabama, he believes the facility should be located close to the DOJ.
He stated, “I believe there is something that can be said concerning the FBI, the Dept. of Justice, or injustice. At the moment, the department of injustice is at fault, not the department. They collaborate, they can cross the street, therefore I believe they have to be. Therefore, every time you have to meet someone in court or for any other purpose, they must go through traffic for a full hour and a half or a couple of hours from a location in Virginia that is rather far away.”
