Trump participated in the decision to keep the FBI building near Trump's D.C. hotel, but aides can't say why

On Monday, the inspector general for the Government Services Administration, which oversees the federal government's real estate, released a report confirming that President Trump had met at least twice with GSA officials about replacing the FBI headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C. At the first meeting in January, participants agreed to pursue razing the FBI headquarters and rebuilding it in the same spot, not build a new campus in suburban Maryland or Virginia, the plan for a decade. The decision was announced a few days later.

In April, GSA Administrator Emily Murphy gave “incomplete” testimony to Congress that "may have left the misleading impression that she had no discussions with White House officials in the decision-making process about the project," though her answers were "literally true," the IG report found. It's not clear what role Trump played in the decision, as GSA employees were instructed by the White House counsel's office "not to disclose any statements made by the president" in the meetings to the inspector general, citing executive privilege — even though the inspector general's office "is part of GSA and within the Executive Branch," the report said.

Trump has been "obsessed" with the FBI's aging and outdated J. Edgar Hoover building, Axios reported in late July, reportedly calling the 1974 Brutalist pile "one of the ugliest buildings the city" and relaying plans to micromanage the building process. The FBI headquarters is right across Pennsylvania Avenue from the Trump International Hotel, which the Trump Organization leases from the GSA. Rep. Gerry Connolly (R-Va.), who supports moving the headquarters, said when he first suggested that Trump "was personally involved" in "this multi-billion-dollar government procurement which will directly impact his bottom line," it was "dismissed as a conspiracy theory."

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GSA spokeswoman Pamela Dixon disputed the IG's finding that the GSA lowballed the cost of rebuilding in D.C. and said the report "acknowledges an indisputable fact: The administrator's congressional testimony was truthful."