If anyone in America still doubts that we have a lying, cheating, corrupt president -- one who has surrounded himself with an army of boot-licking sycophants -- all they need to do is check out the machinations to which the Trump administration will resort in an effort to get the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to allow continued construction of the president's cherished ballroom while he seeks an appeal to the high court. No one that I'm aware of has spelled out the diabolical nature of said machinations quite like the journalist/lawyers at the Above the Law (ATL) Legal Website. In this instance, Liz Dye and Andrew Torrez lead the way under the headline "Bunker Ballroom Blocked," which provides details about Trump's effort to land an emergency stay from SCOTUS that would allow above-ground construction to continue on the $400-million White House ballroom while the case is under appeal.
Before we get into the meat of the article, let's briefly note procedural matters -- in this case, tight deadlines -- that bear watching. The high court likely will take action on the administration's stay request by Friday, August 21. This is when the lower appeals court's injunction forcing a temporary halt to above-ground construction on the East Wing ballroom project is scheduled to take effect.
Here is the key point that Dye and Torrez drive home in their article: Trump has repeatedly couched the ballroom project as a benevolent gesture on his part -- a gift, if you will -- to "the people's house" that has been needed for decades. Dye and Torrez show it is anything but that, filled with the kind of brazen deception for which Trump has become known. In fact, deception might be Trump's only presidential "talent," as the ATL writers show when they begin:
Trump has given America so many gifts! An “American Flag Blue” reflecting pool so clear you could swim in it. A state fair packed with luminaries like Dean Cain to celebrate the nation’s semiquincentennial. A giant arch that would make Reich Minister Albert Speer blush. And soon, a beautiful bunker ballroom where the White House’s East Wing once stood. All funded by private donations, at no cost to the taxpayer!
Or he would bless us with these bounties if evil, activist judges would quit getting in his way.
The latest setback came Friday, courtesy of Judges Patricia Millett and Brad Garcia, appointed to the DC Circuit by “Barack Hussein Obama” and “Sleepy Joe Biden.” Over the dissent of “Highly Respected Judge, Neomi Rao” [sic], the three-judge panel affirmed the district court’s order blocking above-grade construction of Trump’s 90,000-square-foot Mar-a-Lago replica.
Naturally, Trump spent the weekend posting AI slop of the ballroom’s roof captioned “Drone Port.” (See image at the beginning of this post.)
What message was Trump trying to send with his image of military hardware perched atop the White House? The answer is not immediately clear, but you can bet it has little to do with "truth" or a desire to be "forthcoming" -- two words that hardly ever are used in the same sentence as "Donald Trump. Dye and Torrez write:
Tanker trucks on the roof are confusing, but the law here is not. Congress has delegated limited powers to the president for the “care, maintenance, repair, alteration, refurnishing, improvement, air-conditioning, heating, and lighting (including electric power and fixtures) of the Executive Residence at the White House” pursuant to 3 U.S.C. § 105(d). That’s why no one’s suing Trump over the tacky gold shit he keeps stapling to the walls at the White House. But under 40 U.S.C. § 8106, “A building or structure shall not be erected on any reservation, park, or public grounds of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia without express authority of Congress.” A gigantic ballroom is obviously a “building or structure,” and Congress has not expressly authorized Trump and pals to build one in President’s Park.
The two sections of law cited in the above paragraph should put the ballroom issue to rest. But we are talking about Donald Trump here, and he is equivalent to a toddler who's had his favorite toy taken away -- and he's going to squall until he gets it back, or until someone spanks his butt, which SCOTUS has been reluctant to do. In fact, the high court has become Trump's No. 1 enabler, and it is unclear if the justices have any clue how to deal with a crook who has Trump's "skillset." That's because we've never had a criminal of Trump's stature in the White House, at least not in our lifetimes. Heck, Trump makes Richard Nixon look like Captain Kangaroo. And Nixon, if you overlook the criminality, actually could function as a pretty fair president. Trump brings nothing to the office except deceit. Speaking of deceit, get a load of the following section from the ATL article:
This is likely why Trump was cagey about his plans, promising in July of 2025 that any “renovations” would “pay total respect” to the existing structure of the East Wing. Then in October, before anyone could rush into court to stop him, Trump knocked down the entire East Wing and dumped the rubble at East Potomac Golf Course — another target of his “beautification” rampage.
He repeatedly insists that “the desperately needed, and totally secure Ballroom… is a Gift from President Trump and Great Patriots of the United States of America. There will be no expense to the American Taxpayer.” In reality, he’s already grabbed $352 million in funds designated for the Secret Service — more than a tenth of the agency’s budget — to build his ballroom. The New York Times now puts the total cost at $600 million, with more than half of it coming from public money. (So much for the gift.)
Let's take a closer look at the material highlighted in yellow above. First, the ATL writers use the term "cagey" to describe Trump's plans for "renovations" at the White House. That is a polite way of saying Trump was sociopathically dishonest, and the writers describe how and why he was dishonest . . . because he knew he had to destroy the East Wing before anyone could go to court to stop him. That suggests Trump knew his actions were unlawful, so he lied to the American people -- the ones, who by virtue of paying taxes, actually own the White House -- in order to get his way.
Second, the ATL writers describe Trump's pledge that his ballroom would come "at no expense to taxpayers," and they state how and why he violated that pledge . . . by essentially stealing one tenth of the Secret Service's budget and applying it to the ballroom while driving up the project's cost past the $600-million mark.
If the above information does not take your breath away -- if it does not leave you feeling like you've been had -- well, we've all been had. Some of us recognize it, and some of us, inexplicably, do not.
Speaking of soaring costs, Trump originally described the ballroom project as a space for social functions. But now, he describes it mostly as a "military installation." How did that happen? Well, it involves a whole lot more deceit. Dye and Torrez write:
In December 2025, the National Trust for Historic Preservation sued to block construction, arguing the project violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) because Trump never secured Congressional approval as required by § 8106. Initially, the Justice Department argued that the APA did not apply, since construction was being run by the Office of the Executive Residence (EXR), rather than the National Park Service (NPS).
EXR’s job is to oversee floral arrangements and canapés at the White House, not major construction. But unlike the National Park Service, EXR is not a federal agency, and so it cannot be held to answer under the APA. Clearly the administration hoped to evade judicial review by parking this illegal construction inside the White House, and at first it actually worked. On February 26, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon denied the Trust’s first motion for preliminary injunction, holding that EXR cannot be sued under the APA. But Judge Leon also laid out a very clear road map for the Trust to get what it wanted.
“Unfortunately for Plaintiff, its challenge fails because the White House office in question is not an ‘agency’ under the APA and because Plaintiff did not bring the ultra vires claim necessary to challenge the President’s statutory authority to complete his construction project with private funds and without congressional approval!” he wrote. Hint, hint.
Five days later, the Trust amended its complaint to add an ultra vires claim, and on March 31, Judge Leon granted their renewed request for an injunction. “The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!” he wrote.
"My God," you might be saying, "a federal judge flat-out told Trump he is not the owner of the White House, but the president still can't get that through his demented brain." I hear you -- and Dye and Torrez surely would hear you, too. They write:
Judge Leon mocked the government’s fallback theory that building Trump’s ballroom was a permissible “renovation” authorized by 3 U.S.C. § 105(d), noting that such an interpretation would give the President functionally limitless power. “Under Defendants’ reading, virtually any change to the White House could be framed as an ‘alteration’ or ‘improvement,’” he scoffed. “Indeed, some might even view tearing down the White House and building a modern skyscraper in its place as an ‘improvement.’” Indeed!
The government immediately appealed the injunction. But then, in late April, a disturbed man breached the first layer of security at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in an attempt to assassinate the president. Not wanting to let a good crisis go to waste, the Trump administration howled that this incident demonstrated the desperate need for the ballroom, accusing the plaintiffs of trying to get the president killed. Never mind that, even if it were appropriate to hold the WHCD at the White House, the event would be far too large for Trump’s planned ballroom.
Even when they howl, Trumpers mostly spew nonsense. They claim a ballroom was supposed to protect an imperiled president and the First Family? (Do we have a First Family? When was the last time anyone saw Melania Trump appearing in an official capacity as first lady? Does Barron Trump even exist, aside from his apparent relationship with Andrew and Tristan Tate?)
Since a ballroom clearly was not going to protect our mostly non-existent First Family, the project suddenly had to become a bunker. That led to a peculiar motion from the Department of Justice (DOJ), using nutty language that asks the court to "dissolve" its own injunction. From the ATL piece:
On top of the intemperate language, the motion floated the brand new claim that the underground bunker and the ballroom were so “knitted, unified, and cohesive” that halting construction of one necessarily stopped the other. This is exactly the opposite of what the government told the court in January, when it swore that underground construction could proceed without locking in the above-grade architecture.
Unsurprisingly, Judge Leon declined to grant the government’s request.
Can you handle one more example of Trumpian deceit? Since the law is clear that no president can unilaterally tear up any portion of the White House and build something in its place, the administration is trying to rely on a relatively arcane area of the law called "standing." But following that track, requires misstating the law -- and neither Trump nor his DOJ have any problem doing that, especially with Todd Blanche now installed as attorney general. (Unfortunately, the administration's effort appears to have involved "fraudulent misrepresentation") :
Because Trump has no authority to rebuild the White House without Congressional approval, the DOJ has leaned hard into standing as a means to defeat this case. It sneers contemptuously that architectural historian Alison Hoagland, the individual plaintiff through whom the Trust claims aesthetic injury, is merely “a single person who walks her dog in the vicinity of the White House.”
In fact, aesthetic standing is a well-established doctrine that has been around for decades. And, as Judge Millett pointed out in her opinion affirming the injunction, this “cramped standing theory would deem no one injured by a decision to raze the Statue of Liberty, to obscure the names on the Vietnam War Memorial, or to install a political billboard atop Mount Rushmore.”
She agreed with Judge Leon that the “care, maintenance, repair, alteration, refurnishing, improvement, air-conditioning, heating, and lighting” referred to in § 105(d) refers to ordinary maintenance and upkeep, not demolishing an entire structure and building a new one in its place. And so, barring intervention by the Supreme Court, Judge Leon’s injunction will hold. The administration is free to continue work on the underground bunker and other measures it deems necessary to Trump’s personal security, but can’t erect his temple of tackiness.
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