President Donald Trump’s White House construction blitz appears to have hit a major snag after a federal appeals court determined Friday that the effort was illegal.
Following the administration’s immediate appeal of a March 31 order by U.S. District Judge Richard Leon — an appointee of President George W. Bush — halting the project’s non-security-related work, the case was taken up by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which stayed Leon’s order.
Yaakov Roth, the principal deputy assistant attorney general of the Department of Justice’s Civil Division, argued June 5 before a panel of three circuit judges: Barack Obama-appointed Patricia Millett, Joe Biden-appointed Bradley Garcia, and Trump-appointed Neomi Rao. Roth claimed three grounds for a reversal of Leon’s order: a lack of standing and the timeliness of the Dec. 12, 2025 lawsuit by the plaintiff, the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States; that existing funding and oversight of the President’s Park, rather than requiring specific congressional approvals, were sufficient project authorizations; and that even the judiciary could and should not interfere in work — already well underway — related to national security upgrades.
The Court’s majority, ultimately, did not agree.
“Whether or not a massive ballroom should be constructed is for Congress to decide and is not a matter for Executive self-help,” the judges wrote in a 2-1 opinion released Friday. “This holding has nothing at all to do with whether the proposed ballroom is desirable, or not, as a matter of policy. This ruling does not even necessarily mean that the Defendants may not ultimately construct the ballroom.”
“What it does mean,” the court continued, “is that the Defendants may not do so during the district court’s expeditious litigation without securing Congress’s authorization, as the Constitution and laws require.”
The ruling also emphasized that each president “is a temporary tenant” of the White House and not its owner.
“The President has no – and claims no – constitutionally assigned authority over that property, which is designed and maintained for the use of all Presidents, current and future, and for the American people,” it continued.
The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to the White House and the Department of Justice for comment.
The Court noted it would pause its order for two weeks to allow for the administration to appeal to the Supreme Court.
“We told the people that did the suit they’re not good people. We told them, we said, ‘You know, you’re being very unpatriotic when you bring a suit like this,’ but it is what it is,” Trump said during the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on July 24. “It’s really going, it’s moving fast. We’re ahead of schedule, we’re right on budget, and it’s gonna be something like I think no country has.”
Leon’s original March 31 injunction to “stop construction of the above-ground ballroom” initially was due to take effect April 14, before the judge clarified its scope and pushed enforcement off until April 23.
The appeals court, however, temporarily stayed his initial order to review safety and separation-of-powers concerns, and then pending any further order by the Court after arguments were heard June 5.
As a result, the excavators, pile drivers, concrete pumps, and other construction equipment hitherto essentially churned on without delay — and reportedly accelerated — since the East Wing was demolished Oct. 20, 2025, and 238 days after the National Trust’s lawsuit was filed.
Since its July 2025 announcement, the scope of the East Wing’s modernization was revealed to feature bulletproof glass, and both a “drone-proof,” missile-resistant steel roof and “droneport” capping the 89,000-square-foot project, including a 22,000-square-foot state ballroom.
On the other hand, bomb shelters, secured telecommunication and biological defense systems, and a hospital and other specialized medical facilities are among the secret military infrastructure reportedly extending six stories below grade.
Likewise, the cost of the $400 million project first pitched as being completely paid for by private donors has risen to $600 million, funded in part with $155 million from the U.S. Secret Service, $149 million from the White House Military Office, and $3 million from the Executive Residence’s accounts, according to The Washington Post.
Leon’s original order halted the ballroom construction project until Congress authorized its completion but made an exception for “actions strictly necessary to ensure the safety and security of the White House and its grounds … and provide for the personal safety of the President and his staff” [sic].
Trump and his staff subsequently began emphasizing the security need and such features of the project to the media and the judiciary, going so far as to minimize the ballroom as both “inseparable” from and merely capping the secret bunker complex rather than purposed to solve an apparent logistics problem for state functions.
“[T]he underground doesn’t work, isn’t necessary, and would indeed be useless, without the above ground sections. The underground portion is wedded to, and serves, the upper portion,” Trump claimed on Truth Social soon after Leon clarified his order April 16. “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! [sic]”
While an April 25 assassination attempt on Trump at the Washington Hilton hotel brought the project back into the national spotlight — and in subsequent submissions to the courts — a Senate Republican-proposed obligation of $1 billion in security funding to complete it ultimately lacked support to move forward.
The day following the attempt, Trump said, “We need the ballroom,” adding that the hotel where the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner took place was “not a particularly secure building.”
While recognizing the unique safety and security circumstances involving the president and the White House — and refusing “to be dragooned into the role of construction manager” — Leon, however, previously declared that “national security is not a blank check to proceed with otherwise unlawful activity, and belated assertions that the above-ground ballroom is ‘inseparable’ from an array of security features … are not an occasion for this Court to reweigh the equities or reconsider the preliminary injunction!”
“Judge Richard Leon should stop playing games with America’s Security!” Trump fired back May 31 on Truth Social. “If anything happens, he will be held responsible for the Death and Destruction caused to our Country.”
(DCNF)
