A federal judge has rejected Donald Trump’s claim that his $400 million ballroom is a mere “alteration” to the White House.
At a hearing in D.C. on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon repeatedly questioned the administration’s claims that the president does not need congressional approval for his super-sized vanity project.
Trump, 79, ordered the bulldozing of the entire East Wing of the White House to make way for the ballroom, fixating on the construction during a cost-of-living crisis and overseas military “excursions.”
Lawyers for the Justice Department claimed a federal law allows Trump to make alterations and improvements “as the president may determine.”
Leon, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, said that labelling the construction of the ballroom as “an alteration… takes some brazen interpretation of the laws of vocabulary,” according to CNN.
The judge also pushed back on a technicality that the White House falls under the authority of the National Park Service, which has approved the extravagant construction.
“This isn’t any national park,” Leon said. “This is an iconic symbol of this nation.”
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit charged by Congress with preserving historic buildings, previously asked Leon to issue a temporary injunction to halt construction until congressional approval is granted.
The judge said he would make his ruling on by the end of March, but flagged that the losing side would no doubt make an appeal. Above-ground work on the ballroom has been earmarked by the Trump administration to begin in April.
Leon noted, “It would have been a heck of a lot easier by any standard to have just gone to Congress to get the authority to do it,” calling out the government’s “shifting theories and shifting dynamics.”
As recently as Monday, Trump was gushing over the latest cosmetic tweaks to the 90,000-square-foot project, which has blown out in costs and is not expected to be completed before his second term as president ends.
For comparison, the primary White House structure, the Executive Mansion, is just 55,000 square feet.
“I build great stuff,” Trump said during a rambling Kennedy Center board meeting in the White House. “We have a magnificent ballroom being built.”
He went on: “It‘s going to be on time, on budget. It‘s going to be under budget. Literally, we are having it under budget, other than we have upgraded it in terms of the marbles we are using. We are using onyx and stones that are incredible. But it will be something really spectacular.”
Trump’s gloating over the ballroom follows a damning public verdict on his pet project released earlier this month.
Over 32,000 people submitted digital and handwritten notes to the National Capital Planning Commission, which is overseeing the construction.
Around 97 percent of 9,000 comments from the public are anti-ballroom, according to a CNN analysis.
Terms used by the public to describe Trump’s beloved ballroom include “gaudy,” “garish,” “ostentatious,” “obscene,” “hideous,” “disgusting,” “vulgar,” “cheap,” “low class,” and “travesty.”
