The U.S. Supreme Court temporarily paused a lower court blockade on President Trump’s White House ballroom construction on Friday.
After initial consideration, Chief Justice John Roberts issued a stay on an injunction by D.C. District Court Senior Judge Richard Leon from earlier this year. That order effectively halted the White House’s above-ground construction on the privately funded ballroom. The Bush 43-appointed Leon argued the project lacked congressional authorization.
A three-judge panel for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals declined (2-1) to lift the injunction earlier this month, which prompted the Trump administration to appeal to SCOTUS on Monday.
The chief justice’s order will remain in place until the Supreme Court takes further action on the matter. It will presumably provide more time for the full court to consider the administration’s application to stay Leon’s order, which would have taken effect at midnight unless the high court acted.
In its application to SCOTUS, the Trump administration argued that Leon’s order is “unlawful” and, if permitted to stand, “would wrongfully install a single district judge as sole arbiter of what further construction is ‘strictly necessary’ to protect the safety of the President, his family, staff members, and visitors to the White House, including foreign dignitaries, and presidents and prime ministers of other countries.”
“President Trump has been the target of a growing number of recent assassination attempts, including a heavily armed assassin who breached the security perimeter of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner; a gunman who opened fire at the west entrance of the White House complex; a conspiracy to deploy drones armed with explosives at the UFC Freedom 250 event; the threat of a missile attack against Air Force One on July 8; a sniper caught in the act by the Secret Service at Trump International Golf Club, Palm Beach County, Florida; and a sniper’s bullet that struck the President’s ear in Butler, Pennsylvania,” the filing reads. “The updated East Wing complex is absolutely required and should not be enjoined.”
The administration went on to note several “glaring” legal errors with the district court’s ruling. The government most notably contended that the challenger (the National Trust for Historic Preservation) lacked standing to bring a lawsuit seeking to stop construction of the project.
