Trump Asks Supreme Court to Let $400 Million Ballroom Work Continue

WASHINGTON —

President Donald Trump has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to let him keep building a $400 million (£295 million) ballroom at the White House, a week after a federal appeals court ruled the project could not go forward without approval from Congress, according to BBC US & Canada and CBS News.

The emergency filing, submitted Friday by Solicitor General D. John Sauer, asks the justices to pause a lower court's stop-work order while the administration appeals it. Sauer called the injunction "dangerous" and argued that halting construction now, with the project 65 percent complete, would amount to what he termed "construction-by-injunction," CBS News reported. The appeals court's ruling does not take effect until August 21, giving the Supreme Court a narrow window to act.

Chief Justice John Roberts has ordered the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the group that sued to block the project, to respond by noon Tuesday, according to BBC US & Canada.

A Dispute Over Who Controls the White House

The fight began in October, when the administration demolished the White House's East Wing without first seeking approval from Congress or from bodies such as the National Capital Planning Commission, which normally reviews changes to federal property in Washington. The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued, arguing the demolition and rebuild skipped a legally required review process that includes public comment.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sided with a lower court this month, finding the White House "very likely" lacked authority to proceed because Congress has "full constitutional control over federal property and the funding of its maintenance and development," CBS News reported. In his Supreme Court filing, Sauer pushed back hard on that framing, writing that the president is "not a tenant" of the White House but "the sole, elected head of the Executive Branch."

The National Trust for Historic Preservation said in a statement that the administration has been "actively attempting to outrun the courts by accelerating construction of the ballroom" instead of complying with earlier rulings, according to BBC US & Canada. "The administration's transparent efforts to evade the rule of law, frustrate judicial review and limit the availability of meaningful relief in the courts must stop here," the group said.

Bunkers, Donors and a Bigger Building Push

The roughly 90,000-square-foot project includes an event space along with an underground bunker and medical facilities, and judges have let that portion of the work continue even as the fight over the above-ground construction plays out, CBS News reported. Sauer told the court the delay threatens Trump's safety, citing what he described as recent assassination plots against the president.

Trump has said the $400 million cost is being covered entirely by private donors and corporations, including Lockheed Martin, Amazon and Microsoft, rather than taxpayer money, according to CBS News. Court records show the funds passed through a nonprofit to the National Park Service before landing in an account the president controls that is normally used for routine White House repairs, a mechanism U.S. District Judge Richard Leon likened to a "Rube Goldberg" contraption.

The ballroom is one of several changes to Washington's federal core under Trump, alongside a renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and a planned arch modeled on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, according to BBC US & Canada. The administration has faced similar accusations of bypassing review requirements on those projects as well.