Roberts Allows Trump’s Ballroom Construction To Continue While Supreme Court Considers Appeal

The Supreme Court is temporarily letting construction continue on President Trump’s White House ballroom while justices consider the merits of a lawsuit seeking to stop the project.Chief Justice Roberts signed a temporary order on Friday that stays an 3-2 appeals court ruling that upheld a lower court ruling that work on the 90,000-square-foot ballroom project should stop while a case brought by the National Trust for Historic Preservation is argued.Friday’s one-sentence order allows work to continue as justices take more time to consider whether the work stoppage should go into effect. Without the order by Chief Justice Roberts, work would have been forced to halt on Saturday.The trust says the project needs to go through a legally mandated review process and have congressional approval. The administration has stated that the ballroom project must be completed due to national security concerns.In a filing, Mr. Trump’s solicitor general, John Sauer, argued that the underground infrastructure being built under where the ballroom will sit is needed for protection of the president.The Trump administration tore down the East Wing of the White House last fall and began construction of the ballroom project. Mr. Trump promised the project would be paid by donors but the costs for the bunker — in the hundreds of millions of dollars — are required to be paid by taxpayers.Hundreds of construction workers have been working nearly around the clock to build the superstructure that will house what the president has called a “military complex.”There is no timeline for the full Supreme Court to decide on whether the project should be halted. Mr. Sauer, in his filing, told the justices that it is too late to stop work because it is already moving quickly toward completion.“We are aware of the administrative stay. To be clear, this is not a final decision on the merits of the government’s stay application, and we await further action,” the trust said in an emailed statement.

Roberts Allows Trump’s Ballroom Construction To Continue While Supreme Court Considers Appeal

Roberts Allows Trump’s Ballroom Construction To Continue While Supreme Court Considers Appeal

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