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FBI HQ in PG!
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Anonymous
“Dear Acting Inspector General Erickson, We write to request an immediate investigation into the serious concerns raised by the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Christopher Wray, regarding the site selection process for a new FBI headquarters. There is overwhelming evidence suggesting that the General Services Administration (GSA) administered a site selection process fouled by political considerations and alleged impropriety – one that was repeatedly curated to arrive at a predetermined outcome. Throughout the site selection deliberations, GSA suppressed, dismissed, and overrode the judgement and recommendations of career officials from GSA and the FBI. This has led the Director of the FBI to take the extraordinary step of calling into question the “fairness and transparency in the process and GSA’s failure to adhere to its own site selection plan.” In July 2023, the agency executed a series of changes to significantly alter long-established site selection criteria and scoring rules. The changes made to the criteria were almost exclusively responsive to perceived concerns and direct requests from representatives of the Greenbelt site, meant to tilt the selection process in favor of Greenbelt. GSA made these changes over the objections of the FBI, which wrote to GSA in a June 26, 2023 memo that the original scoring criteria “best balanced the many wide-ranging elements considered for optimal site selection.” That same month, the agency finalized a plan to unilaterally remove a career official from the position of Site Selection Authority, the person tasked with confirming the recommendation of the site selection panel and certifying a final site selection. The agency, instead, installed a political appointee as the Site Selection Authority. Director Wray, once again, raised serious objections to the change. Additionally, the FBI identified potential conflicts of interest that the appointee had related to the Greenbelt site, and raised concerns about potential impartiality. These concerns were never fully addressed by GSA. In August 2023, the site selection panel, comprised of two career GSA officials and one career FBI official, reached a unanimous decision to select Springfield, Virginia as the home for the new FBI headquarters. The new Site Selection Authority unilaterally overturned the decision of the panel, including by making changes to the scoring – contrary to GSA’s own site selection plan – which benefited consideration of the Greenbelt site, and hurt the Springfield site. According to the FBI, “the justification offered for those changes have been both varied and insufficient.” In summary, GSA changed the original site selection criteria – which had been developed by GSA experts, in accordance with the agency’s own best practices for site selection – in a way that favored the Greenbelt site, and did so over the objections of the FBI Director. Then GSA changed the person tasked with confirming the final site selection from a career official to a political appointee. As identified by the FBI, there existed a potential conflict of interest with that political appointee, tied to the Greenbelt site. The political appointee then overturned the decision of a panel of career officials who unanimously selected Springfield, in part by changing how certain criteria were calculated and how certain factors were considered, contrary to what had been previously outlined to the public and to Congress by GSA. Almost immediately after directing the final site selection to Greenbelt, the political appointee promptly left the federal government, implicating Congress’s ability to engage with this individual in an oversight capacity. In defending the indefensible, GSA has decided to proceed with the selection of Greenbelt over the objections of its client agency, the FBI. These facts, when taken together, paint an ugly picture of a fatally flawed procurement that demands further investigation. We request that your office initiate an immediate investigation into the site selection process for the FBI headquarters.” |
Anonymous
| When you don't like the outcome, but you feel like you can't complain about the outcome, then you complain about the process. |
Anonymous
I hate to say it but it's true. I've seen it a lot, for example when parents don't like the outcome of school boundary studies, so they complain about the process, and become highly convinced that they have all the ammunition to overturn the decision. Unless they can prove that a regulation or a law was broken, then the outcome doesn't change. |
Anonymous
That's what I've been saying about the 2020 election and the election deniers. They don't like the outcome so they complain about the election process, whereas Trump won in 2016 so they didn't complain about the election process then, even though 99% of the polls indicated that he would lose. Heck, he even thought he'd lose. Yes, sore losers will find anything to make the outcome different. Wray seems to think his opinions should matter the most in the selection process. He'd be wrong. GSA has the final say. |
Anonymous
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I think it's funny that Wray is complaining about the selection being a political appointee.
Ahem.. Wray.. you are a political appointee. |
Anonymous
Looks like Nina Albert may want to lawyer up, because the entire state of Virginia, both Democrats and Republicans, have made some very strong accusations about her. It’s looking increasingly like another really bad staffing decision by Bowser to bring her on board while this massive cloud hangs over her and DC requires a lot of support from Congress in a number of areas. https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/11/15/virginia-fbi-headquarters-investigation/ |
Anonymous
I can’t really see the FBI suddenly getting a huge boost in recruiting numbers because of a relocation to Greenbelt, and better proximity to the Baltimore aquarium. |
Anonymous
"Virginia delegation makes pro forma complaint about GSA's selection of a site in Maryland" |
Anonymous
| Great for Maryland. It will be good for my neighborhood and county too. After a few years here, the FBI employees will be happy with the decision! |
Anonymous
“VA Congressional Democrats alleges that Bowser senior official engaged in improper conduct” |
Anonymous
Exactly what I said. A pro forma complaint. It's their job as representatives of Virginia to complain about the GSA's decision. |
Anonymous
I don’t think you know what pro forma means or how to use it in the appropriate context. Here’s is hint, if you’re using it to apply to very specific corruption allegations against members of one’s own political party then you’re using it wrong. |
Anonymous
pro forma adjective pro for·ma (ˌ)prō-ˈfȯr-mə 1 : made or carried out in a perfunctory manner or as a formality 2 : based on financial assumptions or projections: such as a : reflecting a transaction (such as a merger) or other development as if it had been or will be in effect for a past or future period a pro forma balance sheet b : excluding usually extraordinary charges or expenses (as from acquisitions, restructuring, or the write-down of goodwill) often in order to present a more attractive financial report pro forma income |
Anonymous
My god. You think VA is just going to let this go? Hilarious. |
Anonymous
Virginia? As in the state of Virginia? What do you think the state of Virginia is going to do, sue the GSA for deciding to locate the FBI HQ in Maryland? |