President Donald Trump’s administration has doubled down on its push to lift a court ruling barring progress on a new White House ballroom, again citing gun violence as a reason to push ahead with construction.
In a court filing Sunday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche argued there was an “urgent need” for the ballroom to be completed.
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“This is a terrible and extremely harmful event for the United States of America and everything it stands for!” Blanche wrote, condemning the lawsuit that halted construction.
As justification, Blanche cited an incident last Saturday when a 21-year-old suspect named Nasiah Best approached the security checkpoint at the White House in Washington, D.C., pulled out a gun and began firing.
One bystander was injured. The suspect died after a gunfight with Secret Service agents. The sound echoed across the White House lawn and reporters could be seen running for safety.
Blanche claimed that the incident was the second time in the past month that President Trump’s life had been threatened.
On April 25, 31-year-old Cole Thomas Allen attempted to breach security at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which was attended by President Trump and his top officials. Allen was taken into custody after a gunfight with security guards.
“This second attack on the President this month highlights the importance of the highest level of state-of-the-art security at the White House, including the ballroom,” Blanche said in the filing.
He added that the ballroom “is being constructed to enable the president to carry out his constitutional duties within a safe and heavily guarded facility.”
The Justice Department under Mr. Branch made a similar argument after the incident at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
And Trump himself issued a nearly identical statement on Saturday, using his Truth Social platform to link recent shootings to the ballroom.
“This event, one month removed from the White House Correspondents Dinner shooting (sic), will demonstrate how important it is for all future presidents to have the safest and most secure space of its kind ever built in Washington, D.C.,” Trump wrote.
“Our national security demands it!”
building barrier
But Trump faces an increasingly difficult battle as he moves forward with his ballroom project.
On March 31, Federal Judge Richard Leon issued a temporary restraining order against further construction of the ballroom.
Leon proposed carve-outs for any work “necessary to ensure the safety and security of the White House,” but the judge said “blatant claims of ‘national security'” were unacceptable as a way to circumvent his decisions and the law.
He called on the Trump administration to petition Congress to approve the project. Until then, Leon decided that “construction should be halted.”
In recent weeks, President Trump has asked Congress for additional funding to build the ballroom, but he has not received approval to build it.
But even members of his own party balk at the price. President Trump called for $1 billion to be added to the Immigration Enforcement Funding bill for the ballroom project, but Senate Republicans agreed last week to remove that provision.
Some objected to the cost. Some point out that because of the $1 billion in unrelated spending, the immigration funding bill is no longer subject to a process called budget reconciliation, which allows bills to pass the Senate with a simple majority.
Increasing cost of banquet halls
President Trump has previously insisted that the banquet hall would be entirely funded by private donations.
But the associated costs have ballooned. President Trump estimated last year that construction would cost $200 million. The planned price was then raised to $400 million in December.
But last month’s total jumped to include $1 billion in taxpayer funds intended for security improvements.
Still, when President Trump gave reporters a tour of the construction site on May 19, he insisted that the ballroom project would be paid for out of his own pocket.
“I paid for all of this. We’re making this a gift. This is a gift. This is not going to be paid for by the taxpayers,” Trump said, gesturing to the area.
Mr. Blanche has repeatedly maintained that the construction project is ahead of schedule and on budget, and Mr. Blanche reiterated similar claims in Sunday’s court filing.
But on May 12, when asked by reporters about soaring prices, President Trump appeared defensive.
“You doubled the size, you stupid person. You doubled the size. You’re not a smart person,” he told one journalist.
New details revealed
The project has also been criticized for its lack of transparency and lack of external approval.
As of this month, new details are emerging about the structure, which is expected to be about 90,000 square feet (about 8,360 square meters) and look smaller than the White House’s Executive Mansion.
President Trump also recently revealed that the new banquet hall will include a six-story underground facility that includes a military hospital. Completion is scheduled for September 2028, just before President Trump’s term ends in January 2029.
Some of the new proposed features are detailed in Blanche’s recent court filing.
Blanche wrote that the ballroom “contains air raid shelters, state-of-the-art hospitals and medical facilities, top-secret military installations, structures, equipment, protective partitions, and other facilities.”
In addition, the “highly secured” roof will house “a major drone port and government sniper facility.”
Blanche argued in Sunday’s filing that he needed to disclose these security features in order to get the court’s injunction lifted.
“The longer this frivolous lawsuit drags on, the more national security will be at risk as the government continues to justify the need for a secure addition to the White House through leaks of security equipment, layout, and other construction specifications,” Blanche wrote.
The plaintiffs argued that the Trump administration acted with little oversight.
In December, the National Trust for Historic Preservation filed a complaint arguing that the law requires approval by the National Capital Planning Commission as well as Congress.
It also claimed that “appropriate public environmental assessments” were not conducted before the Trump administration abruptly demolished the East Wing of the White House in October to make way for major construction.
“No president, President Trump, President Biden, or anyone else, is legally allowed to demolish parts of the White House without any consideration. Nor is it legally allowed to build a banquet hall on public land without giving the public an opportunity to consult,” the complaint states.
“President Trump’s efforts to do so should be halted immediately.”
