INTERFERENCE

FBI Director Says Biden Appointee Was Biased in Choosing New HQ Site

A panel of officials had settled on a site in Virginia before a senior political appointee overturned their decision, Wray said.

FBI Director Christopher Wray has accused a Biden appointee of interfering in a decision to relocate the FBI headquarters to the Maryland suburbs, according to a Thursday email obtained by The Wall Street Journal. Wray said a panel of three officials from the General Service Administration, which deals with the federal government’s real estate, and and the FBI had chosen a site in Springfield, Virginia, near other national security agencies. But a senior Biden appointee at GSA overturned the decision and selected Greenbelt, Maryland, at the last minute. Wray said that person, identified by WSJ as Nina M. Albert, previously worked for the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority, which owns the land in Greenbelt, and recently left GSA to become a deputy mayor of Washington, D.C. She did not respond to WSJ’s request for comment. Wray accused her of unilaterally changing the search criteria to benefit Greenbelt. “Our concerns are not with the decision itself but with the process,” he reportedly wrote in his email to staff. He said the matter would now go to Congress which could spell trouble as some Republicans have threatened to defund the FBI over what they see as partisanship.