news

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Anthony G. Brown (MD-04) released the following statement on Senate Republicans inclusion of a rider regarding the FBI headquarters in coronavirus relief legislation at the request of the White House:

“As the United States faces rising infections, more than 140,000 deaths and millions out of work, the White House and Senate Republicans are trying to sneak a giveaway to the president’s personal business into the coronavirus relief package. President Trump and his Republican enablers offer next to no money to help working families and those struggling in the midst of this grave pandemic, but surreptitiously propose a $1.75 billion corrupt favor benefiting the president.

“Since the beginning of the Trump Administration, they have failed to justify the cancellation and delays of new headquarters for the FBI. We know that President Trump was intimately involved in, and single-handedly altered the FBI’s original plans to build a new consolidated headquarters in Maryland or Virginia. The President and his administration have employed faulty and misleading reasoning to keep the FBI in its current location, and have displayed an alarming lack of transparency and accountability with Congress and the American people even as President Trump has politicized this critical national security project to protect his bottom line.

“If President Trump thinks he can use this crisis to enrich himself at the expense of the American people, he is sorely mistaken. The GSA and the FBI must return to their original plan to build a consolidated, modern and secure FBI headquarters. We must be guided by our national security needs, not the Trump family’s profits.”