Adding funding to rehab the FBI building to the Senate COVID funding bill? It’s all to prevent another hotel from moving in and competing with Trump International DC. Wow.
TOPLINE: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other Republican Senators have joined with Democrats to oppose a Trump administration proposal to allocate $1.75 billion in coronavirus relief funds for a new FBI headquarters, with Republicans saying it was included at the administration’s insistence and Democrats alleging the move is aimed at boosting Trump’s D.C. hotel.
KEY FACTS
- Trump has previously intervened in plans to build a new FBI headquarters in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, with his administration instead proposing to build it at the site of the crumbling J. Edgar Hoover building in downtown D.C., just across from the Trump International Hotel.
- The Senate GOP’s new coronavirus stimulus proposal includes $1.75 billion “for the design and construction of a Washington, DC headquarters facility for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
- “There is no question that the President stands to gain financially by keeping the FBI in its existing building and blocking any competition for the Trump Hotel from being developed there,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said in a statement. Continue reading.