A federal judge once again issued an order halting construction on President Donald Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom until it gets “express authorization from Congress,” finding the administration’s attempt to sidestep his previous ruling “incredible, if not disingenuous.”
U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Leon’s earlier ruling on March 31 asking to halt construction excluded “actions strictly necessary to ensure the safety and security of the White House and its grounds.”
The Trump administration argued in an April 3 motion that the entire ballroom construction needed to proceed or it would leave the Executive Mansion “open and exposed” and create “grave national-security harms” to the building, the president and his family and staff.
In his April 16 ruling, Leon sought to clarify his earlier injunction.
“Defendants now seek to tum this exception on its head and unreasonably insist that the entire ballroom project may proceed,” Leon wrote. “Defendants argue that the entire ballroom construction project, from tip to tail, falls within the safety-and-security exception and therefore may proceed unabated. That is neither a reasonable nor a correct reading of my Order!”
Trump lashed out at Leon, calling him a “Trump Hating” man who has gone “out of his way to undermine National Security, and to make sure that this Great Gift to America gets delayed, or doesn’t get built.”
Trump also went on to list features that he said would be part of the project: “Bomb Shelters, a State of the Art Hospital and Medical Facilities, Protective Partitioning, Top Secret Military Installations, Structures, and Equipment, Protective Missile Resistant Steel, Columns, Roofs, and Beams, Drone Proof Ceilings and Roofs, Military Grade Venting, and Bullet, Ballistic, and Blast Proof Glass.”
The fact that the project would include a “state-of-the-art hospital” had not been made public before. The White House did not immediately respond to questions about the location of the hospital and whether it would be above or below ground.
The ruling came after the National Trust for Historic Preservation filed an amended lawsuit last month against Trump and several federal agencies asking to stop construction on the 90,000-square-foot ballroom. The nonprofit group argued that Trump should have sought Congress’ permission before the demolition of the East Wing.
Leon also clarified that the scope of the injunction only applied to “above-ground construction of the planned ballroom.”
It “does not stop below-ground construction of national security facilities, work necessary to provide for presidential security, and construction necessary to protect and secure the White House and the construction site itself,” he wrote.
Two days before the March 31 ruling, Trump said an important part of the ballroom he’s building for the White House is a “massive military complex” underneath it that was supposed to remain secret. He blamed the lawsuit for exposing the secret.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Judge halts ballroom. Trump reveals hospital is part of White House project
Reporting by Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
