A federal judge in Maryland has halted the Trump administration’s effort to shift the FBI’s long-planned new headquarters to the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., blocking a reversal of the Biden administration’s 2023 decision to place the bureau’s future home in Greenbelt, Maryland.
FBI Director Kash Patel announced in July 2025 that the agency would move only a short distance from its current downtown location, arguing that the Reagan Building represented “the most cost-effective and resource-efficient way to carry out our mission.”
Maryland challenged that decision in court last November, suing Patel and the FBI. The state accused the Trump administration of trying to “unlawfully sabotage” the Greenbelt headquarters project and improperly steer away more than $323 million that Congress had set aside for the relocation.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang ruled in Maryland’s favor, stating in a 47-page opinion that the administration’s decision to cancel the Greenbelt plan and redirect the funding was “arbitrary and capricious and not in accordance with law,” while also finding additional violations of federal law.
The FBI has operated out of the J. Edgar Hoover Building in downtown Washington since 1975, but the aging facility has faced serious structural and maintenance issues for roughly two decades, fueling years of debate over where the bureau should go next.
The Trump administration and the General Services Administration later chose the Reagan Building, a high-profile federal property that had housed the U.S. Agency for International Development until 2025. That year, the administration folded USAID into the State Department and allowed Customs and Border Protection to assume the building’s lease.
Trump had previously taken aim at the Maryland relocation plan, referring to Maryland as a “liberal state” during remarks at the Justice Department last year.
The future of the FBI headquarters has been a recurring issue for Trump. During his first term, he considered relocating the bureau but ultimately dropped a proposal that would have moved it to one of three sites in Maryland or Virginia. Instead, he pushed for a smaller headquarters in Washington to replace the deteriorating Hoover Building.
But the GSA, during the Biden administration, chose the Greenbelt site, ending a 15-year debate on whether the headquarters should be relocated.
In a statement, Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown said, “Maryland and Prince George’s County committed more than a decade of work to earn the FBI headquarters and pledged hundreds of millions of dollars. By blocking the Trump Administration’s unlawful attempt to move the FBI to the Reagan Building and divert the funds Congress set aside for this project, the Court has cleared the path back to Greenbelt.”
The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
