Supreme Court temporarily allows White House ballroom construction to continue

Washington — The Supreme Court on Friday temporarily allowed construction of the White House ballroom to continue, freezing for now a lower court decision that would have halted work on the project.

Chief Justice John Roberts issued a stay that will remain in place until the Supreme Court takes further action. His order is temporary and gives the high court additional time to consider the Justice Department’s request to pause a district court’s injunction, which was set to take effect at midnight unless the Supreme Court acted.

The Trump administration asked the high court last week to intervene and allow construction of the 90,000-square-foot ballroom to continue.

Roberts’ stay came after a divided federal appeals court concluded earlier this month that Congress, not President Trump or the White House, has “full constitutional control over federal property and the funding of its maintenance and development,” and noted an “absence of any express or implied authorization” that grants Mr. Trump the ability to construct the $400 million ballroom. 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the injunction issued by the district court earlier this year that would’ve stopped construction on the White House ballroom. But the D.C. Circuit halted its ruling for 14 days, through Friday, to give the Justice Department time to seek relief from the Supreme Court.

In a filing with the court, Solicitor General D. John Sauer had asked the justices to pause the lower court ruling that blocked above-ground construction while the legal battle over the project plays out. The overhaul also includes an underground bunker, medical facilities and other features, and judges have allowed that work to continue.

“This case involves an extraordinary and unlawful injunction that will halt the ongoing construction of the integrated military complex, including a totally secure ballroom space, at the East Wing of the White House, which is vitally required by national security,” Sauer wrote.

Mr. Trump has reiterated that concern, arguing that construction must continue because it is “vital” to his safety and the safety of future presidents, and American national security, especially in light of recent foiled assassination plots against him. In a Truth Social post earlier this month, Mr. Trump called the National Trust for Historic Preservation “TREASONISTS” and alleged without evidence that they “revealed Top Military Secrets!”

But Mr. Trump has often conflated the ongoing construction of a new presidential security bunker that is being built underneath the proposed ballroom, and the construction of the ballroom itself. As the legal challenge has played out in lower courts, all below-ground construction on national security facilities has continued, and only above-ground work on the physical construction of the ballroom is at issue. 

“The lower section does not work without the upper section and, likewise, the upper section does not work without the lower. It is all one highly integrated unit,” Mr. Trump wrote in the same Truth Social post criticizing the Trust. He later added in the same message that the lawsuit “is this kind of gross and flagrant abuse of our Courts that is exactly why Americans are losing faith in our System of Justice.”

The administration has warned the Supreme Court that work on the ballroom is too far along to stop. The White House official managing the project, Joshua Fisher, said in a declaration submitted to the justices that even if a court ordered the building to be taken down or altered, “there would be no way to do so.” And Sauer wrote in the filing with the high court that the “stop-work mandate” from the district court is “impossible.”

Lower court stays, which have allowed ongoing work on the ballroom, have pushed construction “beyond the point of return,” he said.

In response, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has accused the Trump administration of trying to “outrun judicial review.” While the case was before the D.C. Circuit, the White House “accelerated construction” with a 250-person crew working 20 hours a day, seven days a week, they wrote.

Mr. Trump has claimed to have raised most of the $400 million he says he needs to complete the project through donations from private donors and major corporations like Lockheed Martin, Amazon and Microsoft.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, the judge who is overseeing the legal challenge to the project, found that the Trump administration’s means of funding the project — in which donations were collected through a nonprofit organization, transferred first to the National Park Service and then to a fund used for typical White House maintenance and repairs — was unlawful. 

Construction on the ballroom project began in October following demolition of the East Wing. The National Trust for Historic Preservation filed its lawsuit to halt ballroom construction in December, arguing the work is unlawful.

Leon issued his preliminary injunction that would block construction in March and clarified in April that work on the below-ground, national security facilities was not covered by his order.

The D.C. Circuit then ruled in favor of the Trust in a 2-1 decision, finding that the White House could not build the ballroom without authorization from Congress.