House Republicans are launching an investigation into the General Services Administration’s selection last month of Greenbelt, Md., as the FBI’s new headquarters site, eyeing whether the process was politicized in what has been a years-long saga that only continues to escalate.

Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and James Comer, R-Ky. - who lead the House Judiciary and Oversight committees respectively - notified federal officials of their probe in joint letters sent Friday, marking the second consecutive inquiry focusing on the FBI’s new headquarters in as many days. The GSA’s inspector general said Thursday that the office would embark on its own “evaluation” after FBI Director Christopher A. Wray objected to the process and Virginia lawmakers lobbed allegations of impropriety; concerns that GSA officials and Maryland leaders have said are meritless.

At issue is a former senior GSA’s official’s decision to select the Greenbelt site over the unanimous recommendation of a three-member panel that opted for Springfield, Va., a move that Virginia lawmakers have described as an 11th-hour intervention tainted by politics and an alleged conflict of interest. The GSA has said Greenbelt’s public transportation access, taxpayer savings and “greatest potential” to advance racial equity and sustainability tilted the decision in its favor.

Jordan and Comer wrote in their letters that the GSA’s assurances that the process was sound “ring hollow.”

“The Committees have a duty to investigate potential conflicts of interest and misallocation of American taxpayer dollars,” Jordan said in a statement to The Washington Post. “These letters demand transparency and crucial information related to the scandal around GSA’s decision to deviate from the panel-recommended location of Springfield, Virginia, in favor of Greenbelt, Maryland, for the FBI’s new headquarters.”

In a statement, a GSA spokesperson reiterated that the GSA “welcomes a review,” stands by the agency’s final decision and would cooperate with the inquiry. The FBI declined to comment.

As soon as GSA unveiled its decision, Virginia lawmakers erupted with ire and Maryland lawmakers popped champagne. The congressional lawmakers and the two states’ governors had been competing both for an economic boon that could come with the new FBI headquarters but also for the bragging rights to host the nation’s premier law enforcement agency. The GSA, through a three-member panel consisting of two officials from the GSA and one from the FBI, was choosing among three sites: one in Springfield, Va.; and two in Prince George’s County, in Greenbelt or Landover.

Officials had for months wrangled over the criteria used to score the sites, with team Maryland pushing to give more weight to equity as Virginians bristled, claiming they were trying to tip the scales. (Prince George’s is a majority-Black county; Virginia put forth arguments touting the diversity of the Springfield area.)

But while the panel selected Springfield, the GSA official authorized to make the final call instead opted for the Greenbelt site, touting its public transportation access and its various short-term and long-term benefits for the federal government in a memo explaining her decision, among other things.

Much of both the House Republicans’ probe and the GSA’s internal evaluation, led by its office of inspections, is likely to focus on that former official, Nina Albert, and how she arrived at her decision.

Albert, who now leads economic development for D.C. Democratic Mayor Muriel E. Bowser, has said she simply reached a different conclusion from the panel. That is not uncommon within the GSA and even happened once in the FBI site selection process, when an official included Springfield as a finalist even though a panel ruled it out.

But in an Oct. 12 letter to the GSA, Wray, who did not single Albert out by name, raised concerns that her role posed a potential conflict of interest - concerns that Jordan and Comer highlighted in their letters Friday. Before joining GSA in July 2021, Albert had handled real estate for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, they noted, which owns the parcel of land that would be the FBI’s new home in Greenbelt.

In brief remarks to The Post, Albert pushed back on those allegations as “misinformation” and disputed that her role posed a conflict of interest, noting that the GSA had already made a determination that it did not. “I think it’s a distraction, frankly, from the decision and the opportunity for the FBI to get the campus that they’ve long waited for,” she said.

Asked if she faced political pressure at any point, Albert declined to comment further.

Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore on Friday defended the selection and process in a statement criticizing the probe.

“This investigation by the House Oversight Committee amounts to nothing more than another attempt at a cheap partisan attack on a fair and thorough process,” Moore said. “For the sake of America’s national security and the hardworking men and women of the FBI, we must focus our efforts on constructing a state-of-the-art headquarters in Greenbelt that meets the FBI’s national security mission as soon as possible. This investigation only distracts us from advancing that vital work.”

House Republicans have their own grievances against the FBI separate from Virginia Democrats - one of whom, Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D), sits on the Oversight committee - that could influence the inquiry.

Jordan, for example, has made clear he does not want the FBI to be located anywhere in the Washington region and would prefer to see it go to a site in Huntsville, Ala., which is also home to FBI facilities. Taking it out of the Washington region could “insulate the agency from improper political influences,” Jordan and Comer wrote in their letters to Albert, Wray and GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who sits on the Judiciary committee, unsuccessfully tried to amend an appropriations bill to entirely block funding for a new FBI headquarters.

On the matter of an investigation, Connolly and Comer found a rare point of agreement, with Comer noting in an unrelated hearing last month that “the decision implicates hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars” and Connolly telling Comer he would “gladly” join him in supporting an inquiry.

Cracks are likely to emerge with Maryland Democrats on the committee, however - including Rep. Jamie B. Raskin, the committee’s top Democrat, and Rep. Kweisi Mfume. Raskin and Mfume joined a statement on Thursday with the Maryland congressional delegation and a host of top Maryland and Prince George’s officials expressing confidence that the FBI headquarters project would forge ahead in Greenbelt and that the GSA’s process was sound.

“Any objective evaluation will find that the GSA arrived at this decision after a thorough and transparent process,” the statement said.

As part of the probe, the committees have asked Albert to appear for a transcribed interview, and have asked the GSA and FBI for numerous documents relating to the site selection process and Albert’s role, including any correspondence about whether it posed a conflict - documents they want by Dec. 15. They have also asked the three members of the panel to appear for interviews.

Erin Cox contributed to this report