The White House, without input from the General Services Administration, is considering the demolition of four federal buildings across Washington, D.C., according to a sworn declaration submitted by Mydelle Wright, who retired in 2024 after 18 years leading a team at the GSA responsible for the stewardship, restoration and management of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

“The White House, acting on its own and not through GSA, has solicited bids and/or is finalizing a bid package (the last step prior to solicitation) to analyze and recommend for demolition four historic federal buildings in DC, which include buildings eligible for and listed on the National Register of Historic Places and a National Historic Landmark,” Wright writes.

Wright says the buildings include the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building (where Department of Housing and Urban Development is headquartered), the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building (where several departments have offices), the GSA Regional Office Building, and the Liberty Loan Building (which was already planned by GSA for disposal).

This filing was made in the lawsuit brought by historic preservation groups, against the Trump administration, over the potential renovation of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building’s facade. 

GSA has sole authority over this process, according to Wright, and would exercise that authority, including ensuring National Historic Preservation Act and National Environmental Policy Act compliance, “long before the stage of soliciting bids related to potential demolition, and yet, upon information and belief, key GSA personnel have only just learned of the White House’s activities.”

“For the first time of which I am aware, a President is personally involved in facilitating end-runs around the agency’s obligations to the buildings that are our national heritage,” Wright writes. “Who in the agency is going to tell him ‘no?'”

“The claims are pure fake news and utterly detached from the facts,” Marianne Copenhaver, GSA Associate Administrator for Strategic Communications, wrote in a statement to NBC News. 

“It’s a manufactured narrative built on speculation. This person left GSA over 20 months ago in April 2024 and is now living 1,600 miles away in Colorado. GSA is proud to right-size the federal real estate portfolio by properly disposing of these four unneeded assets in a way that best serves Americans and in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. But we will not allow baseless rumors to overshadow that reality.”