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John Roberts, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS), essentially has written Donald Trump a blank check to -- for the foreseeable future -- do whatever he wishes with the White House. That's the White House that belongs to you, me, and millions of other Americans by virtue of paying taxes. We elect members of Congress who, by law, have authority to oversee the erection of "any building or structure on . . . any public grounds of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia."
Trump's pet project for the former home of the White House East Wing has morphed from a "ballroom" to a "military installation" to a "national security structure." There is no telling what it will be called six weeks from now. We only know that, for now, Roberts has proven that he is as corrupt as Trump himself -- making an end run around Congress, everyday Americans, and two pieces of controlling statutory law that have been around for 48 and 114 years. As we explained in a post last Thursday, the facts and the law of the case required SCOTUS to take no action at all. That would have allowed a lower appeals court's injunction, forcing a temporary halt to above-ground construction on the East Wing ballroom, to take effect -- while allowing Trump's underground work, apparently on his bunker, to continue.
Even that was a gift from federal judges to the president because he simply does not have the authority to make major alterations to the White House property without the OK from Congress, which he does not have. So Roberts took it upon himself to give Trump an indeterminate amount of time to muck around with the White House, and God only knows what we'll have when "The King of Pain(ful) Taste" is done with it. What once was the most iconic governmental building on the planet might be nothing more than a giant mud hole -- one that probably will leak -- when Trump is done with it.
Adam Klasfeld, a legal journalist and co-founder of All Rise News, provides important perspective on the ballroom saga under the headline "Trump's shadow docket rescue: East Wing addition." Klasfeld writes:
Donald Trump might have a “get-out-of-law-free card” after all in the Supreme Court’s shadow docket.
On Friday afternoon, Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily lifted an injunction that had blocked above-ground construction of Trump's East Wing ballroom in an emergency-docket order that did not state any reasoning.
“IT IS ORDERED that the preliminary injunction entered on April 16, 2026, by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, case No. 1:25-cv-4316, is hereby stayed pending further order of the undersigned or of the Court,” Roberts wrote.
How is that for judicial restraint. I know people -- in fact, I'm married to one -- who put more thought than that into making a grocery list. What exactly did Roberts accomplish with his exercise in "succinctness"? Klasfeld clues us in:
The order pauses an injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, who initially blocked construction of Trump’s East Wing ballroom because of his refusal to seek Congress’s permission to raze and replace the historic building.
Leon later revised his initial order to permit construction on the below-ground security bunker.
See what I mean about federal judges showering Trump with gift rulings -- the kind you and I would never receive. In fact, we showed in an earlier post, the chance of a regular American getting SCOTUS to hear an appeal is about 1% to 1.5% -- and that's even if you have a really strong case, one that sets precedent and all that stuff.
Here is are two ugly truths: (1) John Roberts has been a whore for executive power for pretty much his entire 21 years on the high court; (2) Judge Leon was right on the first go-around, but he wimped out. Leon originally blocked all construction on the ballroom because Trump did, in fact, refuse to seek permission of Congress to raze and replace the historic building. In other words, Trump violated the law from the get-go, but Leon let him get away with it, the two-judge majority on the Circuit Court of Appeals let him get away with it, and Roberts (in so many words) said, "Yee-haw, Donnie, have at it! Just let me know if you need more time."
Klasfeld, meanwhile, probably can't help but notice the foul odor all of this emits. Judges higher up the totem pole seem to notice it, too. Klasfeld writes:
The D.C. Circuit’s majority agreed with Leon, finding that Trump sought a “get-out-of-law free card” by circumventing congressional approval.
“The bold assertion that the Executive can act with utter lawlessness, destroying treasured national landmarks and harming the interests of individuals, and that no court can stop it flouts our constitutional order,” U.S. Circuit Judges Patricia Millett and Bradley Garcia wrote. “And it is no basis on which to claim the favor of courts’ equitable judgment. While this court accords great weight and deference to invocations of national security and the safety of the President, such arguments are not an automatic get-out-of-law-free card.”
Notice that the Circuit judges refer to Trump's actions as "utter lawlessness." What does it say that the chief justice of America's high court allows it to proceed? It says to me that Roberts is compromised, with perhaps an international gangster type holding dirt over his head. It also says the rot in America's federal courts goes way beyond obvious rogues like Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch (who only sits on the bench because Mitch McConnell stole a nomination that lawfully was President Obama's to make and sat on it until Trump took office. If Gorsuch had a smidgen of integrity, he never would have accepted the nomination, but there he sits. And GOP senators supported McConnell's skulduggery by confirming a justice who has no business on the high court.)
That brings us to the subject of money, and the tab for Trump's "ballroom" seems to be growing exponentially. Klasfeld writes:
When the D.C. Circuit decided the case, the East Wing ballroom had been estimated to cost $400 million, supposedly funded through private donations. Studies showed those donors reliably receiving favorable government treatment — with suspicious timing, and the price tag for the construction ultimately ballooned to more than $900 million, mostly on the taxpayer’s dime, according to the Washington Post.
Despite lopsided defeats before federal judges, Trump has had a far better record before the Supreme Court in applying for emergency relief.
That suggests the following: The higher up you go in our hallowed court system, the more secretive the proceedings and the more crooked the umpires who, as Roberts likes to say, "call balls and strikes." Major League Baseball now is backing up human umpires with an Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) System, implemented by the ABS Challenged. Maybe flesh-and-blood litigants would get more fair treatment if we had nonpartisan robots sitting on the high court, all decked out in the finest robes. Robots probably would be more likely to dispense justice than many of the con artists who sit on the federal bench now. I know from personal experience that the primary concern of many federal judges has nothing to do with justice. It's all about protecting the interests and the bank accounts of the legal tribe. Often, the bigger the scoundrel, the more likely he is to be protected. Klasfeld writes:
In a study released this past March, the Brennan Center found that the Trump administration prevailed roughly 80 percent of the time that it sought emergency relief. Those rulings typically do not state the reasoning for reversing lower court decisions, even on a temporary basis.
In short, Trump emerges triumphant when he has John Roberts to carry water for him. But when a judge actually has to rule according to the facts and law, and issue an opinion with actual reasoning, Trump often becomes just another loser.
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