The FBI may be reserving UHaul trucks if House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) gets his wish. The powerful Republican continued his crusade against the weaponized Department of Justice and FBI this week with a proposal that created shock waves.
WIth the purpose of removing the bureau from Washington’s pervasive political influence, Jordan expressed his support for packing it up and heading south. To existing facilities in Huntsville, Alabama, to be exact.
In a pointed letter to the House Appropriations Committee, the congressman recommended that the lower chamber implement the “power of the purse” in this regard.
The FBI is already looking to move away from the nation’s capital and into the D.C. suburbs.
Jordan wrote that “the Committee remains concerned about the politicization of federal law enforcement power emanating from FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. He charged that the agency duplicates activities that would be better served coming from field offices.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan is pushing for the FBI to build new headquarters in Huntsville, Alabama, instead of Washington, D.C., to take politics out of how the agency functions. https://t.co/nSvAFmagEx
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) July 11, 2023
By making this move, autonomy would be restored to the local levels and “improper political influences” would be stripped away.
Jordan suggested that a sure way to get rogue federal law enforcement agencies under control is to slash all funding that is not critical for their respective missions. This would include “eliminating taxpayer funding for any new FBI headquarters facility.”
Instead, relocation outside of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, particularly to Alabama, should be considered. Jordan wrote that an operational plan to facilitate this move should be submitted to Congress within 90 days.
He specifically referenced the FBI’s Redstone Arsenal Campus in Huntsville. These bureau operations have reportedly been regularly expanding for several years.
The agency’s website touted its presence at Redstone for over half a century and reported that over 1,000 workers are there “in various operational and enterprise capacities.”
Undoubtedly the FBI reacted with surprise at this proposal, though it should have expected such an action when Republicans took control of the House in January. After all, its actions have been politicized past the point of denial and are implemented almost exclusively against conservatives.
Removing the agency from Washington entirely would be a giant step toward decentralizing the bureau and redirecting its mission to what it should have been all along — to protect the American people and defend the Constitution.
