House subcommittee holds hearing on FBI headquarters selection process

(The Center Square) — The House Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management held a hearing Tuesday to gain insight into the General Services Administration’s controversial selection of a Maryland site for the new FBI headquarters.

When the GSA, the federal agency that manages government buildings and real estate, chose the Maryland site, it appeared to have concluded a process that began more than a decade ago — one complicated by numerous administration changes and course reversals.

But within 24 hours of the decision’s announcement, news broke of an internal email that FBI director Christopher Wray wrote, expressing concerns about the integrity of the selection process.

“In the course of our work with GSA … we identified concerns about a potential conflict of interest involving the site selection authority and whether changes that individual made in the final stage of the process adhered to the site selection criteria,” Wray wrote.

The site selection authority is the top real estate official in the GSA and is responsible for selecting the new FBI site. Until mid-October, just a few weeks before the Greenbelt, Maryland, site selection was announced, that person was Nina Albert. She left the agency and was replaced by Elliot Doomes, who was called before the subcommittee as the GSA witness on Tuesday. Albert was invited, but the subcommittee was informed Friday she would not be at the hearing.

Much of the questioning throughout the hearing revolved around Albert, as her employer immediately before her hiring by the GSA was the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority — the owner of the Greenbelt property. There appeared to be confusion over when she was appointed as the site selection authority. Subcommittee Chairman Scott Perry, R-PA, seemed to think she had been appointed in July 2023, just a few months before the decision was made.

“I’m just very curious as to why, in July, after all this time — remember, this is 15-years going — in July, all of a sudden, we need to appoint somebody new at the top of this, who eventually overruled the site selection committee’s criteria,” Perry said.

But Doomes later suggested that she was given the authority to make such decisions shortly after being hired in July 2021.

“In July of 2021, the site selection authority (Albert) was appointed as the public buildings service commissioner. Shortly thereafter, she was granted unlimited authorization to work on all matters related to WMATA and in particular, the FBI headquarters,” Doomes said.

He pointed out that this was nearly nine months before Congress passed the bill directing the GSA to resume the site selection process from a previously narrowed list of three sites, including Greenbelt.

The site selection authority typically works with a site selection panel — in this case, comprised of two experienced GSA employees and one FBI employee — and that panel makes recommendations to the authority throughout.

During the FBI headquarters selection, the panel had unanimously landed on Springfield, Virginia, as the obvious choice for the new headquarters. Wray was surprised when the decision came down as Greenbelt.

Doomes assured the committee that Greenbelt was chosen because it emerged as the best choice after following normal site selection procedures.

“Greenbelt was chosen because, as outlined in the decision document, Greenbelt provides the best access to transportation and is the most transit-accessible. It provides the government with the greatest project-schedule certainty, offers the greatest opportunity to positively impact the Washington, D.C., region and has the lowest overall cost to taxpayers of all the three sites,” Doomes said.

Perry challenged Doomes’ assertion, alluding to changes in July made to the weighting of criteria, which ultimately elevated equity, transportation and cost.

Perry also mentioned that before Greenbelt was selected, acquisition costs were reduced from more than $200 million to $26 million.

“That’s a lot of money…. Who’s subsidizing this lowered cost?” Perry asked. He added, “WMATA is apparently now subsidizing the FBI at the same time they’re getting ready to lay off 2,000 employees because they can’t pay their bills.”

Doomes couldn’t answer why or how the property valuation was changed, but he emphasized that the site selection authority is within its rights to deviate from panel recommendations. He cited some examples of when it has done so in the past.

The FBI’s called witness, Assistant Director of the Finance and Facilities Division Nicholas Dimos, called such instances “exceedingly rare.”

Doomes underscored, however, that the SSA often defers to panel recommendations.

“I think it’s important to clarify that the site selection authority looked at the 12 subcriteria across the five criteria and subsequently, the site selection authority accepted nine of the 12 recommendations that the site selection panel made,” Doomes said.

He also highlighted that the GSA opened its process to the public more than ever before in this case.

“This is one of the most transparent processes that GSA has ever been involved in. We have not typically released the site selection plan and the site selection criteria or the detailed site selection decision,” Doomes said.