Appeals
Court Again Allows Ballroom Construction to Go On, for Now
In the
latest ruling, an appeals court in Washington allowed construction to continue
until at least June while it considered the case.
Zach
Montague
By Zach
Montague
Reporting
from Washington
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/18/us/politics/trump-ballroom-appeals-court.html
April 18,
2026
A federal
appeals court on Friday allowed construction on President Trump’s ballroom
project to proceed through early June, pausing, for now, a lower court’s order
that construction stop after next week.
The
overnight decision was procedural: An administrative stay gave the court around
seven weeks to consider the case more fully. But it was the latest in a series
of careful extensions by courts that have each allowed the president to keep
building for short stretches as a lawsuit fighting the project proceeds.
Last
weekend, the same three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia Circuit had avoided wading into the case right away. It
sent the case back to Judge Richard J. Leon, a Federal District Court judge, to
clarify the contours of the case after Mr. Trump complained publicly for weeks
that the project includes transformative national security upgrades to the
White House.
The
appeals panel set arguments for June 5, to consider whether to block
construction anew. Because of the intermittent extensions, the president has
yet to run into a deadline or temporarily bring construction to a halt.
When Mr.
Trump demolished the East Wing of the White House in October, discussion
centered on the soaring 90,000-square-foot ballroom he had proposed building in
its place. But after Judge Leon questioned the legality of the project, the
president quickly pivoted, framing the ballroom as little more than a “shed”
for a far more ambitious underground military compound, secretly designed to
replace the former Presidential Emergency Operations Center.
Last
weekend, judges on the same panel wrote they would not second-guess the
president’s claims that halting construction could jeopardize a critical
security modernization.
“This
court will not gainsay the importance of ensuring the safety of the White
House, the president, staff and visitors,” they wrote.
On
Thursday, however, Judge Leon explained that his thinking about the project had
not changed.
Unless
Congress authorized Mr. Trump to fundamentally alter the historic White House
grounds, he wrote, the new ballroom structure replacing the East Wing could not
be built.
Judge
Leon reasoned that the Trump administration could continue in good faith making
necessary security upgrades that the public would never see. But he warned that
“national security is not a blank check to proceed with otherwise unlawful
activity,” and held firm that Mr. Trump could not use those upgrades as a
pretext to rebuild the White House however he wished.
He sided
with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit chartered by
Congress that works to preserve historic buildings, which has sued to stop the
overhaul of the White House to fit Mr. Trump’s vision.
On
Saturday, the three-judge appeals court panel wrote it would expedite the case
and resolve the merits after both sides submitted their positions throughout
May.
The panel
consists of Judges Patricia A. Millett, an Obama appointee; Bradley N. Garcia,
a Biden appointee; and Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee. Last week, Judge Rao wrote
in a dissenting opinion that she was already inclined to allow construction to
continue uninterrupted during the appeal.
Zach
Montague is a Times reporter covering the federal courts, including the legal
disputes over the Trump administration’s agenda.
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