A Senate committee voted Thursday afternoon to block President Donald Trump’s plan to keep the FBI headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C., escalating a simmering power struggle over the agency’s future location.
The dispute pits the White House against a bipartisan coalition in Congress that had long backed moving the agency’s headquarters out of the decaying J. Edgar Hoover Building and into suburban Maryland.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) introduced an amendment to the fiscal 2026 Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill that would restrict funding exclusively to the original relocation site in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The measure gained unexpected bipartisan traction, with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) siding with Democrats. The decision to cross party lines prompted a backlash from several Republican senators, who argued the decision was outside the committee’s authority.
Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) pushed back, saying the panel does not “get to choose sites.”
The dispute led Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) to call for a “very long recess,” delaying further consideration of the bill. Collins said she hopes the standoff can be resolved before the next markup session.
“I think it’s better we withdraw the bill for now than watch this bill go down,” she said.
The panel is not expected to reconvene before next week.
Trump’s plan would relocate the FBI to the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center — a federal property just blocks from the White House. The administration argues the move keeps the FBI close to other national security agencies while avoiding the massive cost of building a new complex from scratch.
But Maryland officials aren’t backing down, determined to secure the economic and strategic benefits of hosting the new FBI campus.
Politico has more on the reaction and outlook from lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
The blowup exasperated some Democrats on the panel, who questioned why the Republican majority could not accept Van Hollen’s provision. “Because there was a bipartisan amendment adopted we’re going to tank this bill?” asked Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz.
Others expressed confidence the issue would ultimately get settled.
“I honestly think we’ll be able to resolve it,” said Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the panel’s top Democrat. “We’ve always been able to work out issues.”
Murkowski, who was spotted chatting on the floor on Thursday afternoon with Murray, said she had “volunteered” a path for members to hit pause on the bill and “get a little more information about what it is the administration is seeking to do with the [new headquarters plan], because it seems to me that is kind of the blank spot right now.”
Despite cautious optimism, Thursday’s vote throws another wrench into the increasingly politicized debate over the FBI’s future headquarters — and highlights the broader friction between Congress and the Trump administration.
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