Trump administration wants to continue building after lower courts ordered a halt
By Louise Radnofsky
WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration filed an emergency appeal Friday asking the Supreme Court to allow construction to continue on President Trump's planned White House ballroom, after lower courts said it must stop.
Solicitor General John Sauer said in the high court filing that the ballroom was "vitally required by national security," noting that Trump "has been the target of a growing number of recent assassination attempts."
The request puts the Supreme Court on the hot seat to resolve the outcome of a half-finished project that is close to Trump's heart and part of his makeover plans for the nation's capital.
The court asked a preservation group challenging the ballroom to respond to the Trump appeal by next Tuesday.
The president and his team have been speeding through the project even as it has run into legal problems in court. And as litigation has unfolded, the White House has leaned in to arguments that the project is a matter of national security.
Two levels of the judiciary have ruled against Trump, most recently in an appellate ruling this month that said only Congress can approve demolitions or design changes to the White House. The ruling reinstated a trial judge's injunction against aboveground construction, but the appeals panel paused its own ruling from taking effect for two weeks to give the administration a chance to go to the Supreme Court.
Construction has been continuing apace in the interim.
Sauer said a 250-person crew has been working 20 hours a day, seven days a week. The project, he said, is 65% complete and moving quickly toward total completion, and has passed the point where major changes to the design are feasible.
Last fall, construction crews razed the East Wing of the White House at Trump's direction to make way for the ballroom, which the president says will be able to accommodate about 1,000 people for a seated dinner. The project now includes a drone port on top to protect the White House and surrounding region from aerial attacks, Sauer told the Supreme Court.
The president regularly speaks publicly about the ballroom and is known to spend time behind the scenes overseeing its design. He has also repeatedly criticized the judges who ruled against him.
Trump hasn't secured congressional approval for the proposed 90,000-square-foot project, which would eclipse the main building of the White House. He has pledged that the expansion would be funded entirely by private donations, though taxpayers could be on the hook for security-related upgrades tied to the project. To date, Congress hasn't agreed to fund those either.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued to challenge the project. Its lawyers have argued that federal law doesn't allow the president to make sweeping unilateral changes to the White House. Courts have agreed.
Whether or not to build the ballroom "is not a matter for Executive self-help," the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said in a 2-1 ruling. A dissenting judge said the ballroom project is likely acceptable under a federal statute that authorizes the president to take certain steps for the "improvement" of the executive residence at the White House.