Former senior FBI official David Sundberg announced Monday that he plans to run for Congress this year in Maryland’s 5th Congressional District.
Sundberg is running for the seat being vacated by retiring Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., which he has held since he won a special election in 1981. The district covers Southern Maryland and portions of Prince George’s and Anne Arundel counties. Cook Political Report rates it as a solid Democratic seat in this year’s midterm elections.
Sundberg, who joined the FBI in 2002, previously served as the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office during the Biden administration and was notified in late Jan. 2025, just days after President Donald Trump took office, that he was going to lose his job. His termination was among a number of firings of top FBI officials at the beginning of Trump’s second term.
“I’m running for Congress because I believe in the rule of law, not the rule of one man,” Sundberg said in a statement in an apparent reference to Trump. “I have spent my life running toward crises to protect this country — from enlisting in the Air Force to serving as a local detective to dedicating over two decades to the mission of the FBI. I’ve spent my career defending our Constitution from threats abroad and at home. Now, I’m ready to take that same fight to Congress to protect our democracy from those who think they are above the law.”
In his statement Monday, Sundberg said he was pushed out of the agency for doing his job and “refusing to allow politics to compromise justice.”
“I have watched as the White House has weaponized the Department of Justice against political opponents and used the National Guard to intimidate our own citizens, all while seizing levers of power that are supposed to be balanced across government,” Sundberg said. He added, “I am running to ensure Congress becomes a co-equal branch of government again and does not abdicate its responsibility to push back.”
NBC News has reached out to the White House for comment on Sundberg’s announcement.
Former FBI Director Christopher Wray put Sundberg in charge of the Washington Field Office in Dec. 2022. In that role, he oversaw 1,600 employees and led FBI operations in Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia. He was in charge of the investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol and the investigation into the pipe bombs left near the Republican and Democratic parties’ headquarters the night of Jan. 5, 2021.
His other positions at the FBI had him overseeing counterterrorism operations, hostage rescue teams and SWAT operations.
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