GREENBELT, Md. — A federal judge on Monday permanently blocked the Trump administration from moving the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s headquarters to a downtown Washington office building, ruling that the White House had violated federal law when it diverted more than half a billion dollars that Congress had set aside for a new FBI campus in suburban Maryland.
U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang of the District of Maryland found the administration’s redirect of $555 million in congressionally approved funds to the Ronald Reagan Building “arbitrary and capricious and not in accordance with law.” The court permanently enjoined the administration from proceeding with any renovation of the Reagan Building for FBI use, and from directing any of the appropriated funds to any purpose other than the congressionally mandated Greenbelt project.
“Congress made a promise,” Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said after the ruling. “The Trump Administration tried to break it. Now, the jobs, investment, and opportunity Marylanders deserve are within reach.”
The decision marks a significant legal defeat for FBI Director Kash Patel, who announced the pivot to the Reagan Building in July 2025 and framed the relocation as a cost-saving measure that would spare the federal government billions in construction expenses. Patel had argued the 30-year-old federal complex, located a few blocks from the FBI’s existing home on Pennsylvania Avenue, offered a faster and cheaper path than building a purpose-designed facility from the ground up.
The lawsuit was filed in November 2025 by the state of Maryland and Prince George’s County, the suburban jurisdiction whose Greenbelt community had been chosen two years earlier as the site for the FBI’s new headquarters. That selection came in November 2023, following a process that had evaluated potential locations for more than a decade. Brown said his state had invested itself fully in the work that led to Greenbelt’s selection.
“Maryland and Prince George’s County committed more than a decade of work to earn the FBI headquarters,” Brown said Monday. “By blocking the Trump Administration’s unlawful attempt to move the FBI to the Reagan Building and divert the funds Congress set aside for this project, the Court has cleared the path back to Greenbelt.”
The FBI has operated from the J. Edgar Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Avenue since 1975. Structural problems have been documented there for roughly twenty years, and the question of where to consolidate the bureau’s scattered offices into a single modern campus drove congressional debate across multiple administrations. Appropriations legislation passed in 2022 and 2023 explicitly required the General Services Administration to select a new headquarters from one of three short-listed sites, all located outside Washington. Greenbelt was the site ultimately chosen.
Judge Chuang’s ruling turned on that statutory language. The administration had argued it retained broad discretion to reconsider site selection in light of changed priorities, but the court found the diversion of funds specifically designated by Congress was precisely the kind of unilateral executive action the appropriations riders had been written to prevent. The injunction extends to any renovation work at the Reagan Building already undertaken in anticipation of FBI occupancy.
An FBI spokesperson offered a brief statement Monday: “This FBI is mission focused and will continue the best course of action to meet the needs of law enforcement.” The agency declined to say whether the administration intends to appeal Judge Chuang’s order.
The political stakes surrounding the site were never purely about construction logistics. Prince George’s County officials had long argued the FBI campus would generate thousands of jobs, anchor transit-oriented development along the New Carrollton metro corridor, and direct billions in economic activity toward a majority-Black county that sits directly adjacent to the capital but has historically seen federal investment flow elsewhere. The Reagan Building alternative would have concentrated those gains inside Washington rather than extending them outward.
Monday’s ruling adds to a growing body of court decisions in which federal courts blocked Trump administration actions involving the redirection or withholding of congressionally directed funds. A federal court earlier this month found the administration had exceeded its authority in attempting to freeze Harvard’s federal research grants, applying a similar logic: agencies cannot repurpose congressionally directed appropriations without explicit statutory authorization for that repurposing.
The Kennedy Center Trump dispute earlier this summer offered a parallel: another federal judge found that the Kennedy Center’s board lacked statutory authority to rename the institution without Congress, and ordered the changes reversed. In each case, courts have drawn the same boundary: executive authority to manage federal institutions does not extend to overriding explicit congressional direction.
What the court did not address on Monday is whether the Greenbelt construction timeline can be realistically reset after more than a year of delay. The Reagan Building planning was already underway, with personnel and contracting work that will need to be unwound. Questions about land acquisition, environmental review status, and contractor agreements at the Greenbelt site remain open.
Whether the administration contests Monday’s order in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals will determine the pace of whatever comes next. For Maryland and Prince George’s County, the ruling ends one chapter of a fight that began the moment the Trump administration announced the Reagan Building pivot in July 2025. The court has put the $555 million back where Congress directed it. Whether a building follows is a different question, with a different timetable, and no guaranteed answer.
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