The Supreme Court will let Donald Trump continue building his White House ballroom and “military complex” while a legal challenge against the East Wing’s demolition and sprawling construction project continues.
Friday’s one-page decision from Chief Justice John Roberts gives the president permission to keep building what his administration is increasingly describing as a highly fortified military installation that is vital to the safety and security of the president.
A months-long legal battle has stalled construction, but the president urged the Supreme Court last week to intervene and let him build what he has called a “desperately needed National Security structure” — including a massive underground bunker and rooftop military complex with a bulletproof, hermetically sealed ballroom built with nuclear-blast-resistant materials sandwiched in between.
On August 7, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. ordered the government to stop construction on the project by Friday unless Congress — or the Supreme Court — stepped in.
With Friday’s order, the administration can continue construction while the Supreme Court considers its next steps. The justices and federal court judges will likely hear more arguments over the plans and whether Trump subverted the role of Congress with his unilateral decision to demolish the East Wing.
open image in galleryTrump’s plans initially envisioned an ornate White House ballroom stuffed with gold finishes and marble floors, but court filings over the last several months have detailed what officials called “top secret” designs that revealed the primary purpose of the 90,000-square-foot ballroom project.
The president told reporters at the White House on Monday that military officials approached him with plans for the military complex after he announced his intentions to build a ballroom last year.
He said he was told there is an “opportunity to build deep into the ground and build a military facility to go with the White House — and to go with all of Washington, D.C., which would be so valuable.”
open image in galleryThe ballroom is “a knitted, unified, cohesive part of the East Wing Project, which is vital for National Security, and is being constructed to ensure that the President can perform his constitutional duties in a safe and heavily secured facility,” government lawyers wrote in court documents this summer.
The project will include“heavy steel, drone-proof roof, missile-resistant and drone-proof columns, bullet, ballistic, and blast-proof glass, Military-grade venting for air conditioning and heating” as well as “bomb shelters, a state of the art hospital and medical facilities, Top Secret military installations, structures, and equipment, protective partitioning, and other features,” according to the Department of Justice.
If the Supreme Court didn’t halt construction, the project “will in all likelihood become irreversible,” preservationists who sued the administration wrote to the justices this week.
open image in galleryBecause the construction materials are meant to withstand even nuclear blasts, there would be no way to take any of it down even if the courts intervened later, the group argued.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation said the administration’s “striking admission” that the project is “on the brink of a fait accompli” is precisely why the Supreme Court must stop construction now.
“The question is simply who decides whether a ballroom can be built on federal property. Our constitutional system and federal law commits that choice to Congress,” the group wrote.
There is nothing that prevents the president from asking Congress for one — “today, tomorrow, or any time in the future,” they added.
But Trump’s attempt to “foil judicial review and arrogate Congress’s exclusive powers should not be rewarded” with a court order that allows him to continue construction that he lacked “any authority to commence in the first place,” the group argued.
Federal courts have now repeatedly blocked parts of the project from moving forward without approval from Congress, but Democratic and Republican leaders don’t seem interested in getting involved.
“We don’t believe we have to go to Congress. We believe Congress has already given us the authority to do what we’re doing,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said during an appearance on Fox News Sunday. “Many presidents have done a tremendous amount of work to the White House, as they should, and Congress has authorized them to do so.”
Costs for the project have exploded from an initial $200 million estimate to $400 million — with some believing it could cost upwards of $600 million.
While Trump has said private donations will pay for the ballroom itself, the administration transferred more than $300 million from the Secret Service budget to cover security upgrades to the White House this summer.