The Trump administration urged a federal court this week to allow construction of the White House East Wing, including the new ballroom, to continue, with a senior Secret Service official warning of “numerous security risks” if the project is halted.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, had ordered construction on the ballroom to be paused, but he included an exception for “construction necessary to ensure the safety and security of the White House.” The National Trust for Historic Preservation, the group that sued the administration over the construction of the ballroom, filed a motion seeking to clarify the scope of that exception and have the judge order that it does not include the construction of the ballroom itself.
An appeals court panel last week paused Leon’s order to give the Trump administration more time to appeal it.
The Justice Department, in a filing to the federal district court on Monday, pleaded with the judge to allow for construction of the full complex, including the ballroom and other above-ground parts of the East Wing.
“A dormant excavation site adjacent to the exposed Executive Mansion itself poses serious safety and security threats,” the DOJ’s filing said. “The Court is not positioned to second-guess these determinations about what is needed to ensure presidential security, let alone to superintend the construction process. The Court should therefore make clear that it does not intend to do either of those things.”
The DOJ included in its filing a declaration from Secret Service Deputy Director Matthew Quinn in which he stated that the “current unfinished construction site compromises the ability of Secret Service personnel” to protect the White House. Quinn said the project’s construction should continue.
“Given these security risks, along with the vulnerabilities of the already-constructed below-ground structures, leaving nothing on top of the below-ground construction is not an option,” Quinn said.
“The project is a single, coherent whole. An above-ground slab and topping structure is needed to ensure that key underground structures with a security purpose are properly protected and strengthened,” he added.
Quinn stressed the construction plans for the East Wing include “Secret Service security requirements,” and the longer the structure is not completed, the more vulnerable the White House facility is.
“Stop-and-start delays as each ensuing portion of the project must get litigated would compromise the timeline of the Project and unduly prolong critically necessary security steps,” Quinn said. “Moreover, any delay in construction of the project may permit adversaries to view the elements of construction, identify vulnerabilities, and pose ongoing national security risks to a critical piece of the White House infrastructure that is necessary to safeguarding the President on a prospective basis.”
TRUMP BALLROOM CONSTRUCTION CAN CONTINUE, APPEALS COURT RULES
The nonprofit group suing the White House issued its reply in a court filing on Tuesday, urging the federal court to deny the DOJ’s arguments on the construction and claiming “the lack of a massive ballroom on the White House grounds is not a national-security emergency.”
Leon’s order halting construction of the ballroom is not scheduled to go into effect until Friday, after a federal appeals court extended a pause on the district court judge’s order. If Leon declines to allow ballroom construction to continue, the DOJ could return to the appeals court or go to the Supreme Court’s emergency docket in its bid to continue construction on the new East Wing.