The Supreme Court ruled Friday that President Trump can — for now — move forward with construction of his ballroom on the site of the former East Wing of the White House without needing approval from Congress.
The new ballroom is estimated to cost taxpayers at least $300 million despite the president saying repeatedly that taxpayers would not foot the bill.
The ruling comes after months of back and forth between the Trump administration and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which sued to stop the construction of the ballroom. The nonprofit organization has argued that the president must get approval from Congress to build over the East Wing of the White House, the side that held offices for the first lady.
The new ballroom is expected to be a 90,000-square-foot addition to the White House and twice the size of the main part of the White House complex.
Trump has argued for months that the new ballroom is a necessity, often pointing to the lack of space to host events with foreign dignitaries. He’s also said that the ballroom will house critical national security benefits, including bomb shelters, a hospital, sniper nests and a drone port.
The Supreme Court had until Friday to weigh in after lower courts had differing rulings on the ballroom for the last few months.
In a brief order, signed by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court stayed the lower court ruling to pause construction.
In their brief filed earlier this week, the trust asserted that if the Supreme Court allowed construction to continue at this time, they were effectively ending the case.
“Rather than obtain permission from Congress, Petitioners have instead decided to try to outrun judicial review” by accelerating construction. “It is clear that in Petitioners’ view, if the Court grants their stay application, this case is over—despite every court to have reviewed their project having found it to be patently unlawful, and no matter the fact that this Court has not reviewed those decisions on the merits,” they wrote.
The court proceedings started in March, when Republican-appointed federal Judge Richard Leon ruled against Trump on the ballroom, saying the construction needed to stop unless it was additions to the White House that involved safety and security.The ruling then went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which decided that construction could temporarily continue. Leon then clarified and said below-ground construction of the ballroom could continue, but above-ground could not.
Trump responded on social media, writing, “It’s all tied together as one big, expensive, and very complex unit, which is vital for National Security and Military Operations of the United States of America!”
The case then went back to the appeals court but the Trump administration requested an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court.
Construction of the ballroom began last July and has involved closing off access to the north side of the White House and Lafayette Park, which were previously open to the public. Polling shows the project, along with many of Trump’s other efforts to remake the capital city, are unpopular among voters.
An April poll from Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos showed 56% of Americans did not approve of Trump’s decision to tear down the East Wing and build the ballroom.
NPR’s Emily Feng contributed reporting from Washington.
