WASHINGTON: A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to suspend construction of a $400 million ballroom it demolished the East Wing of the White House to make space for, barring work from proceeding without congressional approval.
US District Judge Richard Leon in Washington granted a preservationist group’s request for a preliminary injunction that temporarily halts President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project.
The White House quickly filed a notice to appeal while Trump fumed at the ruling. “We built many things at the White House over the years. They don’t get congressional approval,” he told reporters in the Oval Office a short time later:
Leon, who was nominated to the bench by Republican President George W. Bush, concluded that the National Trust for Historic Preservation is likely to succeed on the merits of its claims because “no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have.”
“The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!” the judge wrote at the beginning of his opinion.
