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Steve Bannon, conservative media personality and former White House chief strategist, rejected former President Donald Trump's plan on Saturday to build a new FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C.
In November, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) chose Greenbelt, Maryland, to be the site of the FBI's new headquarters, replacing the federal agency's decaying national headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C.
Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has since voiced his support for a "spectacular" new FBI headquarters to remain in D.C. in a post shared to his social media platform Truth Social on Saturday. This comes as the former president and other GOP members have ramped up their criticisms of the FBI following the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, as they have claimed federal agencies planted people there that day and provoked the assault on the legislative building.
Last month, FBI Director Christopher Wray vehemently denied those accusations during a hearing, "If you are asking whether the violence at the Capitol on January 6 was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources and/or agents, the answer is emphatically no."
In his Saturday post on Truth Social, Trump wrote that "the FBI headquarters should not be moved to a far-away location, but should stay right where it is, in a new spectacular building, in the best location on our now crime-ridden and filthy-dirty, graffiti-scarred, capital."
He added: "They should be involved in bringing back D.C., not running away from it, especially the violent crime. An important part of my platform for president is to bring back, restore, and rebuild Washington D.C. into the 'crown jewel' of the nation. We will make it crime-free and great again. The FBI should not be fleeing for safer, yet much less convenient, environs. It should make where they are now the safest place on earth. Don't move the FBI."
Newsweek has reached out to the FBI and Trump via email for comment.
However in a post to Gettr, Bannon rejected Trump's idea of a new building for the FBI by stating the agency must be shut down.
"Mr President the FBI Will Need NEITHER A NEW BUILDING OR THEIR EXISTING ONE—BECAUSE THEY MUST BE SHUT DOWN," he wrote Saturday.
Bannon, who worked in the Trump administration for seven months in 2017, is not the first to dismiss the former president's plans for a new FBI building.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy, both of whom are seeking the GOP's 2024 presidential nomination, dismissed Trump's vision for the FBI on X, formerly Twitter.
"Donald Trump failed to drain the swamp so perhaps it is not surprising that he is seeking to deepen the swamp by building a massive new FBI building in D.C.," DeSantis wrote. "Actually, draining the swamp requires taking power out of D.C., not cementing power inside D.C."
"The FBI can't be 'reformed.' The right answer is: Shut it down. Yes, the president can do it. I will," Ramaswamy posted to X.
While Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, wrote: "Let's be clear, the FBI does not need a spectacular new building."
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About the writer
Natalie Venegas is a Weekend Reporter at Newsweek based in New York. Her focus is reporting on education, social justice ... Read more