House Democrats are probing whether President Trump scuttled a yearslong plan to relocate the FBI's headquarters from a prime real estate location in Washington, D.C., to a more suburban locale for his own financial benefit.

New documents, including emails, purportedly show that Trump during a Oval Office meeting in January approved of a proposal to instead raze the existing structure and rebuild a new campus in its place, according to the group of top Democratic House lawmakers Thursday. Their broad assertions are supported by a report released in August by the internal watchdog overseeing the General Services Administration, which manages federal properties. Some of the emails, however, appear to be newly resurfaced.

The change of plans, a more expensive alternative to simply selling or leasing the site in exchange for constructing a new FBI headquarters elsewhere, prevented "Trump Hotel competitors from acquiring the land" on which the J. Edgar Hoover Building now stands, the House Democrats wrote in a Thursday letter to GSA Administrator Emily Murphy.

“As a direct result of President Trump’s clear conflict of interest on this matter, we are now requesting information and documents to determine whether the President is making decisions about the FBI headquarters building based on what is best for the country or what is best for his own financial bottom-line,” Rep. Elijah Cummings, the House Oversight Committee's ranking member, wrote.

Reps. Peter DeFazio, Gerald Connolly, Mike Quigley, and Dina Titus, who are also leading Democrats on relevant House panels, co-signed the letter.

Murphy, a Trump appointee, downplayed the White House's involvement in the FBI headquarters proposal while testifying in April before the House Appropriations Committee. The independent federal agency's inspector general suggested in the August report that Murphy may have misled congressional investigators during her appearance.

"President Trump should have avoided all interactions or communications relating to the FBI headquarters project to prevent both real and perceived conflicts of interest,” the House Democrats wrote Thursday. “He should not have played any role in a determination that bears directly on his own financial interests with the Trump Hotel. The GSA also should have taken steps to wall off the decision from improper influence.”

The plan to move the FBI's main campus to either Greenbelt, Md., Landover, Md., or Springfield, Va., was scrapped in July 2017. The Trump Organization was eyeing the J. Edgar Hoover Building as a possible addition to its Washington real estate portfolio in 2013, according to the Washington Post at the time.