Feds to Pull Plug on Search for New FBI HQ

Ten years of house-hunting are at an apparent end for the FBI after reports that the federal government has decided to nix the search for new headquarters for the agency. Officials from the General Services Administration, which handles federal real estate, tell the Washington Post they'll officially announce the decision Tuesday that the FBI will stay put in DC's "ugly" and "unloved" J. Edgar Hoover Building. Anticipated costs to build a new FBI campus somewhere around DC—a project that Business Insider notes would have cost around $2 billion—apparently became prohibitive and caused Congress to balk.

The New York Times reports on some of the infrastructure and space issues of the current HQ, including that the building can only fit about half of the 11,000 or so FBI employees that need to work out of DC (the rest head to local satellite offices). But more worrisome to some are the security concerns tied to having the FBI housed in such a vulnerable structure, with House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer calling the news to end the HQ search an "extremely alarming development," per the Post. Some officials have also noted that the support for funding could have fallen through because neither the FBI nor the GSA has permanent leadership in place at the moment to lobby for the effort. (President Trump's nominee to head the FBI: Christopher Wray.)