Trump pleads to Supreme Court for permission to build his $400M White House ballroom
Donald Trump’s administration is asking the Supreme Court for permission to build a massive ballroom to replace the demolished East Wing of the White House after a federal appeals court rejected the president’s attempts to construct the sprawling facility without approval from Congress.
Federal courts have allowed the president to continue construction on what officials have described as an expansive underground bunker while questioning the legality of the entire project after destroying the East Wing to make way for a 90,000 square foot facility that the administration argues is vital to national security and the president’s safety.
In a 2-to-1 ruling last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. said the Constitution gives Congress — not the president — authority to make substantial changes to the White House. That decision upheld an exclamation point-filled injunction by District Judge Richard Leon, who called the president the “steward” of the White House but not “the owner!”
“If allowed to go into effect, the injunction would wrongfully install a single district judge as sole arbiter of what further construction is ‘strictly necessary’ to protect the safety of the President, his family, staff members, and visitors to the White House, including foreign dignitaries, and presidents and prime ministers of other countries,” U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote to the high court on Friday.
The appeals court decision has yet to go into effect, allowing construction to continue while the Supreme Court decides what to do next. Justices must decide by August 21.
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.
The Trump administration has revealed in court filings that the ballroom isn’t the primary purpose for the project. Instead, the government is building a sprawling underground bunker with military installations on the site.
Courts have not prevented the government from continuing work on the bunker. The plaintiff in the case, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, never objected to that part of the project.
In response, the administration has promoted plans for a “drone port” on the ballroom’s roof and highlighted the fortress-like plans for the massive building.
In court filings, the Department of Justice called the 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.”
Previously “top secret” plans 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.”
There are also plans for “bomb shelters, a state of the art hospital and medical facilities, Top Secret military installations, structures, and equipment, protective partitioning, and other features,” lawyers wrote.
The ballroom’s rooftop will also be “hermetically sealed to prevent malign forces from contaminating the circulating air, thereby threatening the lives of those inside.”
Trump recently posted several images to his Truth Social account that appeared to be designs for a “drone port” on the ballroom’s roof.
