A federal judge on Thursday blocked above-ground construction of a $400 million ballroom at the White House, keeping President Donald Trump’s signature renovation project on ice while allowing underground work on security facilities to continue.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon issued the ruling in Washington after a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit told him to revisit the national security implications of stopping construction. Leon concluded again that halting above-ground work wouldn’t jeopardize national security, a finding the Trump administration immediately rejected.
Trump went after Leon on social media, calling him a “Trump Hating” judge 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.” Leon, it’s worth remembering, was nominated by Republican President George W. Bush, which makes the characterization a harder sell politically.
The ballroom project sits at the site where the White House’s East Wing once stood. At 90,000 square feet, it’s a substantial structure, and the administration has framed it as a national security upgrade as much as a ceremonial venue, arguing that the construction includes critical features to guard against drones, ballistic missiles, and biohazards.
Leon didn’t buy that argument wholesale.
“Defendants argue that the entire ballroom construction project, from tip to tail, falls within the safety-and-security exception and therefore may proceed unabated,” he wrote in his ruling. “That is neither a reasonabl[e]…”
The judge drew a clear line: below-ground work on bunkers, excavations, military installations, and medical facilities can proceed. Everything above ground stays stopped, except for work needed to cover or secure that part of the site. Leon reviewed classified material the government submitted to him privately before reaching that conclusion.
His original order, issued March 31, had barred above-ground construction without congressional approval. He then suspended that order for two weeks, and his latest ruling stays the new decision for an additional week, giving the administration a window to seek Supreme Court review.
The administration filed a notice Thursday saying it will ask the D.C. Circuit to review Leon’s latest decision, setting up another round of appeals court arguments over a project that has moved as LAIST covered from a construction site dispute into a sustained constitutional fight over executive authority and historic preservation.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, which filed the original lawsuit challenging the project, welcomed the ruling. Carol Quillen, the group’s president and CEO, said in a statement that the group is pleased with the court’s decision.
Quillen’s organization has argued that demolishing the East Wing and replacing it with a ballroom of this scale required congressional sign-off that the administration skipped. That argument has now persuaded Leon twice, and the appeals court’s instruction to reconsider didn’t change his conclusion on above-ground work.
The $400 million price tag, combined with the loss of the East Wing, a structure with its own historical and functional significance, has drawn sustained criticism from preservation advocates and some congressional Democrats. The White House Historical Association has documented the East Wing’s role dating back to the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, when it was built as a wartime security measure.
The administration’s legal strategy now runs on two tracks. Below ground, workers can keep digging, pouring, and building out whatever security infrastructure the government has described in sealed filings. Above ground, the project waits on courts. The week-long stay Leon granted gives the government until roughly early May to get the Supreme Court involved if the D.C. Circuit doesn’t move fast enough.
Whether the high court takes up the case on an emergency basis depends on how the administration frames the national security argument, and whether at least five justices find it compelling enough to override an injunction that has now survived two rounds of appellate scrutiny.
For now, construction crews on the site are working underground, out of view, while the legal dispute plays out in courtrooms a short distance away. The East Wing is gone. The ballroom isn’t built. And the project that Trump called a “Great Gift to America” keeps running into the same federal judge, who keeps reaching the same conclusion.