US judge orders Trump to halt $400m White House ballroom project

A US judge has halted the construction of Donald Trump’s $400m White House ballroom.The US president demolished the historic East Wing of the White House last year to make way for the project.US district judge Richard Leon in Washington granted a request for a preliminary injunction by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a non-profit organization that brought a lawsuit alleging that Trump had exceeded his authority by razing the East Wing and beginning construction without approval from Congress.The decision by Leon, an appointee of George W Bush, leaves the 90,000-sq-ft ballroom project on hold unless it receives approval from Congress.“Unless and until Congress blesses this project through statutory authorization, construction has to stop!” Leon wrote in his opinion on Tuesday. “But here is the good news. It is not too late for Congress to authorize the continued construction of the ballroom project.”The Trump administration immediately appealed against the order.In a statement on his Truth Social platform shortly after the ruling, Trump attacked the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which he called “a radical left group of lunatics”. The ballroom is “under budget, ahead of schedule, being built at no cost to the Taxpayer, and will be the finest Building of its kind anywhere in the World”, the president claimed.In a subsequent post, Trump attacked the judge’s decision: “He is WRONG!”“Congressional approval has never been given on anything, in these circumstances, big or small, having to do with construction at the White House,” Trump claimed.President Harry Truman, who oversaw the last major renovation of the White House from 1949 to 1952, did seek and eventually receive congressional approval for his plans.Leon, in his order, said Trump needs to take a similar approach.“The president may at any time go to Congress to obtain express authority to construct a ballroom and to do so with private funds,” Leon wrote in his opinion.“Indeed, Congress may even choose to appropriate funds for the ballroom, or at least decide that some other funding scheme is acceptable. Either way, Congress will thereby retain its authority over the nation’s property and its oversight over the government’s spending.”He added: “The National Trust’s interests in a constitutional and lawful process will be vindicated. And the American people will benefit from the branches of Government exercising their constitutionally prescribed roles. Not a bad outcome, that!”The decision comes after months of litigation. Earlier this month, Leon had signaled his skepticism about the administration’s argument that the ballroom was an allowed “alteration” to White House grounds.“I’m struggling to see this as an ‘alteration’,” Leon said.White House lawyers have argued that the president did not need congressional approval for the project.In February, Leon declined an earlier request from the National Trust for Historic Preservation to halt construction of the ballroom, on procedural grounds, but he said he would consider an amended complaint, which the group filed shortly after.The most recently reported cost estimate for the ballroom stands at $400m. It has previously been reported that the project is being financed by private donors and large corporations including Meta, Apple, Amazon, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Palantir, Google and Comcast.