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Gerth: McConnell's Republicans tried to slip $1.8 billion wet kiss for Trump in COVID bill

Joseph Gerth   | Louisville Courier Journal

If only U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took care of the unemployed and the workers of Kentucky as well as he takes care of the president of the United States.

In the same bill that he slashed the federal subsidy for workers left without jobs because of the coronavirus and this nation’s appalling lack of a federal response to it, and pushed to free businesses of responsibility if they force people back to work in unsafe conditions, Senate Republicans gave Donald Trump a big, ol’ wet $1.8 billion kiss.

Tucked away in the HEALS Act bill, is an appropriation to replace the 50-ish-year-old J. Edgar Hoover Building that is home to the FBI. Call it the WELL-HEELED Act.

Why is this important?

Since 2012, the General Services Administration has wanted to replace the old brutalist building that is falling apart. The plan has been to buy land out in the suburbs of Washington D.C. and put the FBI headquarters there.

The Hoover Building property would be given to whatever company was hired to develop the new FBI campus as partial payment. The deal would make the new headquarters cheaper, provide space for more employees, and allow the FBI to better secure its headquarters.

The old FBI building would likely be torn down and replaced with some sort of commercial development.

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But when Trump took office in 2017, he put a halt to those plans and pressed for the FBI headquarters to be built on the site of the old Hoover Building, despite the plans that were five years in the works and despite the cost savings.

So, the GSA and the FBI scrapped the earlier plans and looked again at building a new building on the downtown site. And lo and behold, they figured out once again that building downtown would be more expensive, even though the federal government already owns the downtown location.

But Trump continued to press.

What could it be about this property that Trump liked so much? Why was he holding Oval Office meetings to talk about where the federal government would build a new headquarters for an agency that he had called corrupt and crooked?

No. It couldn’t be.

There is no way the president of the United States would waste your tax dollars paying more money for a new FBI for the sole purpose of enriching himself and protecting one of his investments. Would he?

See, the Hoover Building sits on some prime real estate along Pennsylvania Avenue, just two blocks away from the Trump International Hotel Washington D.C.

It would be a perfect location for a luxury hotel that would compete with Trump’s hotel, and in fact, a Trump organization employee expressed concerns about just that happening before Trump even ran for president, according to the New York Times.

So, the Senate Republicans — who moaned and wailed when Democrats included expenditures in one of the original COVID-19 relief bills months ago that they said weren’t related to the coronavirus — tried to sneak a new FBI building that has nothing to do with the pandemic in the most recent pandemic relief measure.

When McConnell and other Senate Republicans held a press conference earlier in the week to lay out their COVID-19 relief plan, not a one of them mentioned the fact that the bill included a $1.8 billion expenditure to keep Trump’s hotel afloat.

And when McConnell was asked about it, he, at first, acted like he had no idea the money was included.

“I’m not sure that it is,” he said, when asked why it was in there.

Then, he acknowledged that it was the White House that wanted the money for a new FBI headquarters at the downtown location and the Republicans obliged. As they always do.


Like they did when they voted almost in lockstep to acquit him on impeachment charges. They do it daily as they overlook the emoluments clause in the U.S. Constitution that is supposed to stop presidents from making bank off the office they hold.

“Obviously, we had to have an agreement with the administration in order to get started and they’ll have to answer the question on why they insisted on that provision,” McConnell finally allowed.

It wouldn’t be the first time Trump has used the power of the presidency in an attempt to enrich himself and protect his investments.

His frequent trips to Bedminster and Mar a Lago cause taxpayer dollars to flow directly to the Trump organization virtually every weekend. The Washington Post has documented about $1 million so far, but it’s likely much more since the federal government has disguised payments to Trump.

He canceled plans to hold the 2020 G7 conference at his Florida property only after there was a groundswell of opposition to him forcing foreign leaders to pay him to stay in his gold-encrusted $200 million palace.

And now this.

McConnell wants the White House to explain why it wanted the new FBI building in the HEALS Act. We know the answer to that.

In the days since, more and more Republicans have expressed unease and distanced themselves further and further from the plan. We need to know why the Republican Senate leadership tried to sneak it in there to begin with.
