What Does the Correspondents Dinner Have to Do With Trump’s Ballroom Project?

What does the past weekend’s attempted shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner have to do with the $400 million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom slated for construction at the site of the demolished East Wing? According to President Trump and the Justice Department, everything.

“This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House,” the president posted on Truth Social the morning after the incident, adding, “It cannot be built fast enough!” Dozens of MAGA-oriented influencer accounts simultaneously pushed out similar messages within hours after the event.

The claim is dubious on its face, not least because the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) is run not by the White House but by the correspondents. The idea that this independent organization would host its signature gathering at the executive residence clashes with the purpose of the annual evening: to celebrate a free press. (Indeed, the WHCA was founded in 1914 as a response to President Wilson threatening to nix presidential news conferences.) What’s more, the dinner has historically taken place at the Washington Hilton in large part because it’s one of the only spaces in D.C. that can accommodate upward of 2,000 people—the planned ballroom, even as its expected size seems to increase quarterly, would seat only 900.

These details matter more than they otherwise might, because the administration’s argument isn’t only a political case—it’s also a legal one. The Justice Department late Monday filed a motion asking Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to signal a willingness to dissolve the injunction he issued blocking above-ground construction of the project. The filing, replete with all-caps affirmations of the unassailability of the government’s position, is the latest escalation in an ongoing court battle over the ballroom. The case may test just how far national security deference by the courts to the executive can stretch.

“A brazen interpretation, indeed!”

The ballroom is, to the confusion of many, a top priority for Trump. Indeed, it has been one since long before he launched himself into politics. Way back in 2010, Trump called David Axelrod, at the time a senior adviser to President Obama, and offered to build a ballroom for the White House. The offer was not accepted.

Barely two weeks into his second term, Trump began talking up his ballroom dream once again. Within months, he had demolished the East Wing of the White House and construction was set to begin. In December, the National Trust for Historic Preservation sued to block the project. Representing them is Greg Craig, who, in addition to having served as Obama’s White House counsel, was indicted on Foreign Agents Registration Act charges during the first Trump administration and later acquitted.

The National Trust alleged that the government had violated the Administrative Procedure Act on multiple counts—by failing to consult with and secure the approval of the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC), by not requesting advice from the Commission of Fine Arts (CFA), and by not conducting the requisite environmental assessment. The plaintiff also claimed the administration had violated the separation of powers, arguing that the president has no constitutional authority to authorize the construction of federal buildings and that Congress had not authorized construction of the ballroom. (Eventually, the government did earn the approval of the NCPC and CFA after stacking both with its allies.)

Judge Leon found that the plaintiff had standing to sue. The National Trust had adequately shown, he concluded, that one of its members—a D.C.-based history and historic preservation professor named Alison Hoagland—suffered “aesthetic injury” that was traceable to the challenged action and likely to be redressed by a favorable decision. Hoagland, who uses the area near the White House grounds for research and aesthetic enjoyment, claimed that its value to her would be lessened by the building of the ballroom.

But the judge denied the plaintiff’s initial bid for a preliminary injunction, holding that the National Trust’s invocation of the Administrative Procedure Act was misplaced, as the White House residence is not an executive agency. He further held—with one of his trademark exclamation points—that “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!”

The National Trust revised its complaint accordingly to add various ultra vires claims asserting that the construction of a ballroom funded by private donations was outside the scope of the administration’s authority under any statute. The Justice Department countered that in 3 U.S.C. § 105(d)(1) Congress implicitly green-lit the ballroom by authorizing appropriations 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” (emphases added by the Justice Department).

“A brazen interpretation, indeed!” wrote Judge Leon, this time granting the preliminary injunction and ordering a halt to construction—but delaying the injunction for 14 days to give the Justice Department time to appeal. The defendants’ reading, he wrote in his March 31 opinion, implied “virtually any change to the White House could be framed as an ‘alteration’ or ‘improvement,’” even “tearing down the White House and building a modern skyscraper in its place.”

Yet the judge did make one concession to the government: He allowed any construction “strictly necessary to ensure the safety and security of the White House and its grounds” to continue as the administration appealed his decision. The Justice Department—apart from its insistence that statutory authority did indeed exist for the president to erect a massive entertainment complex on the White House lawn—had insisted with equal vehemence that ceasing the project “would imperil national security for reasons” it could disclose only in accompanying classified declarations shared solely with the court.

The area underneath the erstwhile East Wing has long been known to house an emergency bunker. But the administration’s argument expanded beyond that narrow point. Over the course of litigation, the government insisted more and more explicitly that the harm to national security “cannot simply be cleaved off” by permitting only below-ground work to continue while barring above-ground progress.

After Judge Leon’s ruling, the president pivoted from touting the blueprints’ Corinthian columns (“considered the best, most beautiful by far”) to adopting the same framing: “We have a drone-proof roof,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One. Among the features of the ballroom-to-be: bulletproof glass, “air-handling systems,” “biodefense all over,” “secure telecommunications and communications all over,” bomb shelters, and “major medical facilities.”

The Justice Department took this a step further: It interpreted the ruling, in opposition to a motion to clarify from the plaintiff, as a go-ahead to “proceed with construction of the East Wing project as scheduled because the entire project advances critical national-security objectives as an integrated whole”—thanks to the aforementioned “missile-resistant steel columns and beams, drone-proof roofing, and bullet- and blast-proof glass windows.”

Or as the National Trust sardonically put it in its reply brief: “Bunkers, apparently, are only as good as the 90,000-square-foot, 40-foot-ceiling ballrooms on top of them.”

Meanwhile, the government immediately sought a stay pending appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, given the imminent expiration of Judge Leon’s stay of his own order. The panel split 2-1 and sent the case back to Leon with instructions to rule promptly on the pending motion to clarify the scope of his injunction. The majority, consisting of Judge Patricia Millett (an Obama appointee) and Judge Robert Garcia (a Biden appointee), wrote that the appellate briefs “raised serious factual questions about the relationship between, on the one hand, above-ground construction of the ballroom itself and the maintenance of safety and security, and prior governmental representations that the below-ground and above-ground stages were distinct and the above-ground design features subject to change.” They expected Judge Leon on remand to clarify “how the injunction and its exception will ensure safety and security pending litigation.” The court of appeals extended the stay of Leon’s order until April 17.

Judge Neomi Rao (a Trump appointee) dissented. She would have dismissed the case for lack of standing and because she agreed with the Justice Department that “the construction project is authorized by a statute that allows the President to undertake ‘improvement[s]’ to the White House.” She further stated that in its stay papers the government had demonstrated “irreparable injury” by showing “credible evidence of ongoing security vulnerabilities at the White House that would be prolonged by halting construction.” This, in her view, is “clearly a weightier interest than the generalized aesthetic harms identified by a single member of the Trust”—which she believed was insufficient to establish the plaintiff’s standing at any rate.

When the case returned to him, Judge Leon expressed dismay at the government’s creative analysis in its opposition to the plaintiff’s motion to clarify. “That is neither a reasonable nor a correct reading of my Order!” he wrote in a modified order on April 16. But he didn’t exactly engage in the “judicial second-guessing” that the government had declared impermissible in matters of national security. Instead, Leon noted that, as he phrased it in his earlier ruling, “the existence of a ‘large hole’ beside the White House is … a problem of the President’s own making”; that the Justice Department’s representations of inseparability of above-ground construction from below-ground had changed over time; and that classified declarations didn’t provide sufficient information on the question of whether there really was a national security need to carry on with the project in its entirety.

The government is once again seeking a stay pending appeal. The D.C. Circuit entered an administrative stay of Judge Leon’s ruling—that is, blocking it until the court of appeals has a chance to rule. The case is before the same three-judge panel as before and briefing is scheduled to be completed by June 1, with oral argument set for June 5.

Notably, at no point has ballroom construction been subject to a judicial halt. At all times, Judge Leon’s preliminary injunction was stayed either on his own accord or by the D.C. Circuit. This is likely to remain true until the litigation ends—which it won’t, almost certainly, until the Supreme Court weighs in. If the administration loses at the D.C. Circuit, it is likely to seek a stay pending appeal from the Supreme Court, where yet again a decisive “shadow docket” ruling would be likely.

"Who could ever object to that?"

The attempted shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner has now become part of this case: The day after the incident, the Justice Department wrote counsel for the National Trust demanding an end to the suit. “Put simply, your lawsuit puts the lives of the President, his family, and his staff at grave risk,” read the letter, signed by Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division Brett Shumate. “I hope yesterday’s narrow miss will help you finally realize the folly of a lawsuit that literally serves no purpose except to stop President Trump no matter the cost. Enough is enough. Your client should voluntarily dismiss this frivolous lawsuit today in light of last night’s assassination attempt on President Trump.”

The National Trust declined the request, and late Monday the government filed a motion with Judge Leon seeking an “indicative ruling dissolving the court’s injunction.” The government seeks to avail itself of a little-used rule that allows a district court to indicate how it would rule on a motion that it cannot rule on directly due to a pending appeal. Although the case is currently before the court of appeals, the government wants Judge Leon to indicate that he would dismiss the case if the court of appeals were to send it back to him.

To put it mildly, this motion is not like the other motions previously submitted in the case. Portions read like a Truth Social post, peppered with references to “Barack Hussein Obama” and “TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME” that make Judge Leon’s exclamation points look as staid as semicolons. Complaining about standing, or “STANDING,” the motion belittles history professor Alison Hoagland as “a woman walking her dog.” That language had not appeared in any of the Justice Department’s prior briefs. It had, however, been used by President Trump in manic Truth Social posts on April 16 and again on April 26, one day before the filing.

“‘The National Trust for Historic Preservation’” is a beautiful name,” the motion begins, “but even their name is FAKE, because when they add the words ‘in the United States’ to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, it makes it sound like a Governmental Agency, which it is not.” Its concluding paragraph starts off, “Because it is DONALD J. TRUMP, a highly successful real estate developer, who has abilities that others don’t, especially those who assume the Office of President, this frivolous and meritless lawsuit was filed.” All this is, obviously, beside the point. The rest of the document is at least on topic.

Tellingly, zero lawyers who had previously been listed on the department’s briefs in this litigation are listed in this one. The only names on the brief are Blanche; Trent McCotter, a recent hire who is essentially running the deputy attorney general’s office while Blanche is acting attorney general; and the department’s number-three official, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward. The decision to omit the other names may reflect a principled refusal by some of those lawyers to sign on to such an embarrassing filing. Alternatively, or in addition, it may have been a decision by top brass to shield the actual laboring oars from the wrath of Judge Leon.

Blanche may have accidentally dropped a hint, in a Monday afternoon press conference about the arrest at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, that the motion was veering off course. Asked about Sunday’s letter to plaintiff’s counsel, Blanche said, “We filed a motion today asking the court to do what the plaintiffs refused to do.” But the department actually had yet to file its motion, and would not do so for another eight hours and change. Does this mean that, unbeknownst to Blanche, the White House had slammed the brakes because the president had demanded changes?

Much of the motion rehashes the Justice Department’s arguments about the manner in which the bunker and ballroom are “one highly integrated unit!” (one venting system, one electrical system, one plumbing system, one security system, one air conditioning and heating system, one elevator connector, and, very importantly, one structural steel and enforced concrete system—and more). The government also focuses on a separate contention: “D.C. does not have a secure space for large high-profile events” that can properly accommodate the president and the line of succession. “Without such a location,” the Justice Department argues, “the President is thus put to the choice of risking his safety by attending events in unsecure venues—be it the tents on the White House lawn, or places like the Washington Hilton (which is now home to two attempted presidential assassinations)—or forgoing those events entirely—to the detriment of his constitutional responsibility to “speak[] to and on behalf of the American people.”

The defendants previously gestured at this argument in the context of events of state: “Blocking construction of the ballroom will prevent Presidents, Members of Congress, and world leaders from having a secure, largescale meeting place for future events, such as inaugurations and global summits,” they wrote in their D.C. Circuit motion to stay Judge Leon’s ruling, which also includes a sworn declaration from U.S. Secret Service Deputy Director Matthew Quinn noting “the ongoing vulnerabilities from entertaining foreign leaders and others in soft tents.” Now, in order to treat what they call a “narrow miss” at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner as “undisputed evidence” that the ballroom is necessary for national security, they’ve expanded this line of reasoning to encompass all events, including those held by private parties.

It seems inconceivable that this motion could succeed—and not only due to the department’s questionable choices of filing a document written in large part by Trump (or a Trump impersonator) and deeming the lawsuit “frivolous” after Judge Leon had ruled in favor of the plaintiff on several occasions. There is simply no reason why last weekend’s events would change his mind on the legal issues before him. It is not as if, before last weekend, Judge Leon had never considered the possibility that someone might try to kill a president at an event outside of the White House.

The intensity with which President Trump has pursued his ballroom—a tally by the Washington Post found that he has invoked the project on roughly a third of the days this year—has finally given rise to a congressional effort to fund construction with taxpayer money, just as Judge Leon suggested in the conclusion of his initial injunction: “Not a bad outcome, that!” If it passes, such legislation would effectively moot the case. But unless the longshot effort succeeds, litigation will continue. The outcome will turn on the question not only of whether the judges believe the government has convincingly shown the ballroom’s essentiality to presidential safety—but also of how much deference the judiciary will afford the executive when it isn’t convincing at all.

“On top of everything else, this project is a gift to our Country from President Trump, and other Donors. It is free of charge to the American Taxpayer,” the Justice Department’s latest motion concludes. “Who could ever object to that?” This appears to be a rhetorical question—but the courts may well answer it.