Supreme Court Lets Trump Continue Controversial White House Ballroom Construction

The Supreme Court on Monday granted a stay that allows Donald Trump to proceed with a large ballroom being built where the White House East Wing once stood. The majority, in an unsigned opinion, declined to address the merits of the case, focusing instead on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s likely lack of standing to sue. The dissent, written by Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by the Court’s three liberal members, warned that the stay enables the executive to sidestep Congress’s constitutional role in funding and regulating federal property.

Earlier rulings by the D.C. Circuit and a district judge had concluded that Congress had not authorized the demolition of the East Wing or the ballroom’s construction. Trump’s legal argument combines a statute permitting use of appropriated funds for White House maintenance with a law directing the National Park Service to conserve historic objects, claiming this permits the project funded by $400 million in private donations. Critics, including the dissent, contend that neither law expressly allows tearing down a historic wing and replacing it with a vastly larger ballroom, suggesting the undertaking is likely illegal.