WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th August, 2018) Congress needs to investigate President Donald Trump's involvement in a decision to cancel a planned move of the FBI headquarters from its present location across the street from the Trump International Hotel to a suburban campus, US Congressman Gerry Connolly said in a press release on Monday.
"I am calling on the [US House of Representatives] Oversight and Government Reform Committee to convene immediate hearings on this matter and to subpoena any GSA [General Services Administration] officials who are suspected of misleading Congress on Trump's role in the decision," Connolly said.
Connolly based his demand on a report by the GSA Inspector General (IG) - a report Connolly requested - which concluding that GSA gave Congress a low-ball estimate of an alternative plan to tear down and rebuild the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover headquarters building at its present location.
"The IG estimates that the Funding Gap Analysis GSA provided to Congress for its revised plan to rebuild on the Hoover site underestimated the cost of that option by as much as $516 million," the release quoted from the report.
Connolly said he suspected Trump was more involved in deciding the future FBI headquarters location than GSA officials indicated in sworn testimony to Congress. The GSA manages Federal government property.
"The Trump International Hotel is across the street from the J. Edgar Hoover Building, and the Trump Organization has a longstanding and documented interest in the Hoover property," Connolly said.
The release claimed GSA Administrator Emily Murphy misled Congress by claiming in April 2017 testimony to Congress that plans for the future FBI headquarters had not been discussed with Trump, while the Inspector General report concluded otherwise.
The IG report cited a White House meeting in early 2018 in which Murphy met Trump in the oval office, along with four senior officials "to provide an update to the President regarding the FBI headquarters project."
For years, FBI officials have complained of security concerns, due in part to decaying conditions at the Hoover building.
The GSA had finalized plans prior to Trump's election to move the agency's headquarters to one of three locations in the Washington, DC suburbs, one in Connolly's home state of Virginia and two in Maryland.
Meanwhile, the Trump International Hotel is the focus of multiple lawsuits claiming that Trump is benefiting financially from foreign guests who stay at the hotel, violating a provision in the US Constitution that prohibits the president from receiving benefits from foreigners without permission of Congress.
Trump has said he will donate all hotel profits from foreign guests doing business with the US government to charity.
