Federal lease for Trump hotel and FBI headquarters project

During her tenure, two issues that were personally important to Trump became sources of controversy for Murphy and the GSA: the hotel that Trump operates under a federal lease (in Washington, D.C.'s Old Post Office) and plans for the relocation and consolidation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) headquarters.[3]

The FBI had long-scheduled a move out of its D.C. headquarters, the J. Edgar Hoover Building, as the aging building was falling apart and not secure.[3] The bureau's headquarters were planned to move to a suburban location.[3] Although the project had been in the works for more than a decade, Trump personally intervened in 2017 (during the first year of Trump's term and Murphy's tenure) to kill the plan.[3] Democrats said that Trump canceled the move to prevent the Hoover Building site from being redeveloped into a hotel that could compete with Trump's hotel across the street; the Trump White House denied that Trump's business played into the decision.[3][13] House Democrats investigated the episode.[13] In April 2018, Murphy told a congressional oversight hearing that the decision to stop the FBI from moving its headquarters came solely from the bureau without the involvement of Trump.[13] However, three months later, the GSA inspector general (IG) released a report finding that Murphy's statement to Congress was "incomplete and may have left the misleading impression that she had no discussions with White House officials in the decision-making."[13][14] The report revealed that Murphy and other GSA officials had multiple meetings with Trump about the FBI headquarters, specifically a two-day meeting in January 2018 between Murphy, Trump, White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, and budget director Mick Mulvaney.[15] The IG report also found that GSA officials misrepresented the costs of an alternative plan to build a new FBI headquarters in downtown D.C., portraying the replacement plan as cheaper than the original plan when it would actually be more expensive.[15] In October 2018, internal GSA emails disclosed by House Democrats showing that GSA discussed "the President's instructions", "direction from WH" and "what was decided in the meeting with POTUS" in January 2018.[13]

Vladimir Putin said today about Hillary and Dems: "In my opinion, it is humiliating. One must be able to lose with dignity." So true!