Well this is sleazy:

President Trump has become personally involved in plotting a new FBI headquarters in downtown D.C., an interest that for now has left the project in limbo and the agency stranded in a building that no longer suits its needs, according to officials and people familiar with the administration’s deliberations.

For years, FBI officials have raised alarms that the decrepit conditions at its current headquarters, the J. Edgar Hoover Building, constitute serious security concerns. A year ago, federal officials had finally decided on three finalist locations in Maryland and Virginia and Congress appropriated $913 million toward the more than $3 billion project.

Six months after Trump entered the White House, his administration abandoned the plan and proposed in February that the government build a smaller headquarters to replace Hoover in downtown D.C. and move 2,300 other FBI staff out of the Washington area altogether, to Alabama, Idaho and West Virginia. At the time, the decision baffled real estate experts and some members of Congress.

Be baffled no more.

Those decisions, by the General Services Administration and the FBI, were made after Trump took a personal interest in the project, according to two people, who spoke Monday on the condition of anonymity because the discussions were meant to be private. One of them said that Trump has frequently raised the issue of the FBI building with appropriators, and his desire for it to be torn down. The website Axios reported Sunday that Trump was obsessed with the project and was “dead opposed” to plans to move it out of D.C.

The GSA is the FBI’s landlord, and who else’s? Oh yes, Trump – it owns his hotel.

The GSA issued a statement Monday saying the decision to stay downtown was made by the FBI, which did not respond to requests for comment. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said it should not be surprising that the president, a former real estate developer, would take a role in such a project.

The issue isn’t whether or not it’s surprising, it’s whether or not it’s corrupt. Is this just more of Trump’s focus on his own bank accounts.

News of Trump’s involvement prompted alarm among Democrats on Capitol Hill, with some suggesting the president’s business — which owns his hotel and from which he still benefits financially — may have motivated his interest. At a February hearing, senators sharply asked administration officials whether they were aware of any involvement from the president.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) issued a statement Monday saying, “there is no question that the President stands to gain financially by keeping the FBI in its existing building and blocking any competition for the Trump Hotel from being developed there.”

“One has to wonder if the Trump administration’s decision to cancel the previous procurement process has anything to do with the proximity of the current FBI headquarters building to the Trump hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue,” said Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), in a statement Monday.

I just consulted Google maps. The Old Post Office aka Trump Hotel is diagonally opposite the FBI building. A posh new hotel there would definitely compete with Trump Dump.

https://twitter.com/NormEisen/status/1024047795794321408