FBI/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP BUSINESS: “Nearly two years before he would begin his presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump arrived in Washington to show off his plans for a luxury hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue under a deal he had reached to lease the site from the General Services Administration. But on that day in September 2013, he also had another property on his mind, only a block away in a prime location midway between the White House and the Capitol…The F.B.I. project was a long-debated plan to turn the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s crumbling Brutalist headquarters, the J. Edgar Hoover Building, over to a commercial developer, who could demolish it and build something new there. In return, the developer would construct a new, state-of-the-art campus for the F.B.I. in the Washington area. Mr. Trump never pursued it, but the F.B.I. building continued to intersect with his business — and later with his presidency. As recently as early 2015, months before he announced his candidacy, an executive at his company expressed concern to a congressional aide about the redevelopment project creating potential competition for Mr. Trump’s hotel. And now, as the first real estate developer turned president, Mr. Trump has again taken an interest in the F.B.I. project.”
–Thomas Kaplan, “Trump’s Focus on a Washington Building Project Draws Scrutiny,” The New York Times online, October 18, 2018