The Trump administration is asking a federal appeals court to overturn a lower court block on construction of a $400 million ballroom and underground secure facility at the White House, arguing that no court has the power to stop the project.
A Justice Department lawyer told the Washington DC circuit court of appeals on Friday that only Congress could halt the work. The administration moved forward with demolition of the East Wing and began underground construction without completing the required federal and district review process, triggering a lawsuit from the National Trust for Historic Preservation in October.
The case hinges on whether courts can check presidential authority when the administration claims national security justifies the construction. The White House has pointed to the April assassination attempt at a White House event as evidence of the security threat the new ballroom and bunker would address.
During oral arguments, Justice Patricia Millet pressed the government's principal deputy assistant attorney general, Yaakov Roth, on when the project became unstoppable. "Was it when the destruction happened? Was it when you started doing the underground work?" she asked. "When did it become impossible for courts to stop this project?"
Roth suggested that even if the government's actions amounted to lawlessness, courts would lack authority to intervene. He argued that Congress, not judges, could override a presidential decision on the matter. "If Congress has weighed the equities in this particular instance, and reached a conclusion, I'm not sure a court would have the authority to second-guess that," he said.
The argument drew sharp pushback from Thad Heuer, representing the historic trust. "Under Marbury v Madison, it is emphatically the province of the judicial department to say what the law is," Heuer said. "The government's position is that even a lawless action of this type could never be stopped by the court. That is entirely wrong. That's exactly the court's job."
He framed the dispute as a fundamental question about control of federal property. "Is it Congress, its owner, or is it the president, its temporary tenant?" Heuer asked.
Congressional skepticism of the project became apparent this week when Senate Republicans stripped $1 billion in funding for Secret Service security upgrades tied to the ballroom from a long-delayed immigration spending bill. A lower court previously allowed the underground bunker work to proceed while blocking the ballroom construction pending the legal dispute.
Author James Rodriguez: "The administration's argument that courts are powerless amounts to a dangerous expansion of executive power that few judges seem ready to accept."
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