WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Congressman Steny H. Hoyer (MD-05) joined Governor Wes Moore, Lieutenant Governor Aruna Miller, Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, Congressman John Sarbanes (MD-03), Congressman Kweisi Mfume (MD-07), Congressman David Trone (MD-06), and Congressman Glenn Ivey (MD-04) at a press conference following their consultation with the General Services Administration (GSA) to advocate for relocating the FBI to Maryland. Below is a transcript of his remarks:
"Thank you very much, Senator Van Hollen. Thank you very much Governor and Lieutenant Governor. Governor Moore, thank you very much for your leadership. You're new to the governorship, but you're not new to leadership. And you're not new to motivating people. Thank you very much for leading this effort.
"We are so proud in Prince George's County of Angela Alsobrooks – an extraordinary County Executive and an extraordinary advocate for the people of Prince George's County who has been in law enforcement for much of her elected life. So she understands the need for law enforcement, and the FBI is a law enforcement agency. [Congressman] Glenn Ivey, my colleague in Prince George's County, as well.
"I've been involved in this process since 2009, September 2009. Director Mueller came to my office and said we need to get out of a building that no longer serves the FBI and no longer serves the American people. And in fact, at this point, time is falling down to the extent that they have nets around the building, so people walking on the sidewalks will not be injured. The first time Quantico was mentioned as a consideration for siting of this building was in 2022. I've been at this since 2009. I met with Mr. Comey, met with numerous FBI officials, met with GSA officials Never was this mentioned as a criteria for where the FBI ought to be sited. And not only did they adopt it in 2022, but they made it 35% out of 100% of the determination being made.
"The Congress, as Senator Cardin has pointed out, was very concerned about that. And the Congress passed in its omnibus in December the requirement that GSA meet with us and with Virginia to determine the credibility and viability – viability is the word that was used – of that assessment of strength of issues. There is no one here in this group that doubts that we win on the four other criteria. So but for that ranking. So what we, Mr. Van Hollen and I and the Appropriations Committee, said is we'll do criteria weighted the same: 20%, 20%, 20%, 20%, 20%. And that's what this discussion was about. This was a productive meeting in this sense.
"GSA assured us and the FBI assured us they would go back to the table based upon the information that we had all given them and reassess the correctness of this process. The administrator said at the beginning it was fair and it was transparent. My view is, frankly, it was neither. Not fair because the criteria of 35% for the location of the building close to not only Quantico but other FBI facilities was never mentioned. Not transparent because we learned that at the very last minute.
So I'm hopeful that the GSA and the FBI will, in fact, go back to the drawing board with the taxpayer considered and certainly with the mission of the FBI uppermost in its mind, which will not be affected by any of the transfer, excuse me, the location issues. The mission will be served by the building that would be built at any one of these three sites. The cost, however, will be substantially more and take substantially longer time to do at the Springfield site. We look forward to further consultations with the GSA and the FBI. I look forward to getting some statistics that we asked for and other questions answered. Governor, you asked the question, a number of others did.
"I am looking forward to getting those answers. We will then have additional conversations with both the GSA and the FBI as to the appropriateness of making a selection based upon the merits of each of those sites. I now yield to my colleague, who also represents both of these sites."