President Trump’s new budget proposal includes $545 million in cuts to the FBI and other Justice Department agencies.
The slices are part of $163 billion in cuts to the 2026 federal spending bill released Friday.
The budget describes the cuts to the FBI as “reflecting Mr. Trump’s priority of reducing violent crime in American cities and protecting national security by getting FBI agents into the field by cutting FBI D.C. overhead and preserving existing law enforcement officers.”
The administration says it’s “committed” to reversing the “weaponization” of the FBI that “pervaded the previous administration,” listing the targeting of peaceful pro-life protesters, concerned parents at school board meetings, and citizens opposed to “radical transgender ideology.”
The budget will instead focus on counterintelligence and counterterrorism while reducing nonlaw enforcement missions that don’t align with the president’s agenda.
This includes eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and intelligence activities already operating in other federal agencies.
The budget makes no mention of building a new FBI headquarters, whose location in or around the Capital Beltway has been debated for years.
In a speech in March at the Department of Justice, Mr. Trump said he would halt plans to construct the FBI headquarters in Maryland because it’s “three hours away” from the agency’s present location at 935 Pennsylvania Ave. NW in Washington.
The FBI and Mr. Trump have had a tense history. In July 2016, under Director James B. Comey, the bureau launched Crossfire Hurricane, investigating the Trump campaign’s purported links to Russia.
Mr. Trump’s firing of Mr. Comey in 2017 led to special counsel Robert Mueller’s long-running and costly investigation. Mr. Mueller ultimately found no evidence that Trump campaign officials conspired with or were connected to Moscow.
Under Director Christopher Wray, congressional Republicans scrutinized him for the FBI’s lack of transparency in investigations related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capital riot, the bureau memo to probe the Catholic Church, the raid on Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in South Florida and the pursuit of pro-life activists demonstrating at abortion clinics.
The Trump White House also lops 40 DOJ grant programs that are contrary to his priorities.
The administration proposed a $468 million funding slash to the $1.62 billion budget for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which the proposal says was used during the Biden administration to “attack gun-owning Americans and undermine the Second Amendment.”
Additionally, the DOJ’s divisions regarding civil rights plus environment and natural resources face cuts.
The former saw its budget reduced, the White House said, over the previous administration’s “weaponizing against states implementing election integrity measures, local police and pro-life Americans.”
The latter “served as the legal arm of the previous administration’s radical environmental and climate agenda, and developed DOJ’s discriminatory ’environmental justice strategy.’”
Mr. Trump also proposes a $212 million cut for the Drug Enforcement Administration, which has a budget of $2.57 billion.
