Aug 17 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Monday blocked a Trump administration plan to relocate the new FBI headquarters to Washington, D.C., rather than in nearby Maryland, which had been picked in 2023 to host the building.
U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang sided with Maryland's attorney general and a county in ruling the administration had unlawfully scrapped a plan to construct a new FBI headquarters in Greenbelt, Maryland, and diverted money approved by Congress for that project to an alternate location, the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington.
The judge said the selection of Ronald Reagan Building violated measures passed by Congress in 2022 and 2023 that required the General Services Administration to pick from one of three short-listed sites outside of Washington.
"Notably, the text provides no conditions under which the selection could be unilaterally rescinded or switched to a nonconforming site," wrote Chuang, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama.
He said that because the administration lacked authority to pick the Ronald Reagan Building to serve as the new FBI headquarters, it likewise could not legally divert $555 million of funding approved by Congress to prepare the site for that purpose.
The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)