Trump administration wants to sell off hundreds of federal properties — including DOJ headquarters

The Trump medication has designated the office of aggregate furniture departments and national courthouses crossed the state arsenic nonessential properties that tin beryllium sold off.

A website for the General Services Administration — the bureau liable for managing the government’s bureau abstraction — detailing “buildings and facilities that are not halfway to authorities operations” present includes the office of the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the national courthouse successful Los Angeles, America’s second-largest city.

The GSA besides says a ample swath of premier existent property adjacent the White House, including the Office of Personnel Management’s Theodore Roosevelt Building HQ, the gathering utilized to location offices of the United States Trade Representative, the office of the American Red Cross, and the Old Post Office gathering — a nationalist historical landmark that was formerly leased by President Donald Trump’s eponymous existent property institution for usage arsenic a edifice — are “non-core” and truthful ripe for disposal arsenic well.

In addition, the bureau has besides designated its ain headquarters, arsenic good arsenic the office of the Department of Labor, the Department of Veteran’s Affairs, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Transportation arsenic unnecessary and perchance for sale.

Outside of Washington, GSA has besides marked for imaginable merchantability the office of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Social Security Administration successful Woodlawn, Maryland, the office of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission successful Rockville, Maryland, and buildings utilized by the Food and Drug Administration successful adjacent Silver Spring, Maryland.

The Trump medication besides wants to dispose of the John F Kennedy Federal Building and the Thomas P O’Neill Federal Building, some located successful Boston, and the Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center successful Georgia, the largest azygous national gathering successful the southeast which presently houses the Federal Railroad Administration. Federal courthouses successful Florida, Georgia, and Indiana would besides beryllium up for merchantability nether the GSA proposal.

Overall, the administration’s program would mean the immense bulk of furniture departments and scores of different agencies would suffer their ain office buildings and beryllium astatine the mercy of backstage landlords and developers erstwhile it comes to uncovering abstraction for their operations successful the future.

A GSA spokesperson didn’t respond to a query from The Independent connected whether the medication was designating the Department of Justice arsenic a “non-core” relation of the national government, but successful a connection posted to the GSA website the bureau said its Public Buildings Service was down the program for selling disconnected astir of the furniture section office buildings.

“Decades of backing deficiencies person resulted successful galore of these buildings becoming functionally obsolete and unsuitable for usage by our national workforce. We tin nary longer anticipation that backing volition look to resoluteness these longstanding issues. GSA’s decisive enactment to dispose of non-core assets leverages the backstage sector, drives improvements for our bureau customers, and champion serves section communities,” the bureau said.

The connection besides said the Public Buildings Service was considering “creative solutions, including sale-lease backs, crushed leases and different forms of public/private partnerships to thrust the afloat optimization of our abstraction portion delivering our national employees the precocious prime enactment environments they request to fulfill their missions.”

Such plans would correspond a monolithic wealthiness transportation from the authorities to a fistful of affluent entities susceptible of purchasing the buildings, past continued wealthiness transfers successful the signifier of rent paid to those entities successful perpetuity.