The federal government is canceling the search for a new FBI headquarters, The Washington Post reported.
Officials in the General Services Administration, which manages federal real estate, told the Post they will announce the cancellation in a phone call with bidders and in meetings Tuesday.
According to the Post, President Donald Trump said he considered bidding for it himself during his real estate career; in 2013, he signed a lease for another GSA property nearby on Pennsylvania Avenue, the Old Post Office Pavilion, which he turned into the Trump International Hotel.
The decision to scrap the search comes after years of failed attempts to persuade Congress to back a plan for a suburban Washington campus – paid for by trading the J. Edgar Hoover Building to a real estate developer and putting up nearly $2 billion in taxpayers' money to cover the remaining cost, the Post reported.
The strategy ended up an expensive complication, costing both the federal government and bidders millions, the Post reported.
Meanwhile, the GSA ended up housing many of the bureau's 9,500 headquarters employees, using expensive short-term leases at about a dozen locations because the staff long ago outgrew the crumbling Hoover Building, the Post reported.
The Post reported it is possible the FBI could utilize some of the approximate $900 million already appropriated toward another headquarters plan.