Fed Judge Makes White House Ballroom Project Congress’ Problem

‘He Is Not, However, the Owner!’

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington, D.C. — a George W. Bush appointee — ordered the Trump administration to halt construction on the $400 million ballroom that President Trump’s trying to build over the East Wing of the White House, which he demolished. In order to continue, Leon said, Trump must seek approval from Congress.

In the colorful new order, Leon granted a request for a preliminary injuction that halts construction on the ballroom temporarily, siding with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which sued to pause the project until it undergoes reviews from federal review panels, like the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts. 

The ruling — at least for now — plops the question of the vanity project down in Congress’ lap during a time when the Republican lawmakers who run both chambers are struggling to agree on how to act on a large swath of President Trump’s priorities leading up to the midterms: funding the Department of Homeland Security, fulfilling Trump’s request for more money for his war in Iran and passing the SAVE America Act, just to name a few.

In his ruling, Leon ran through a list of historic renovations to the White House that were pursued after receiving congressional approval and declared that Trump is not, in fact, the owner of the building. From the order:

“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! President Trump claims that Congress has given him authority in existing statutes to construct his East Wing ballroom project and to do it with private funds. The plaintiff, the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States, claims the President has no such authority under existing statutes and that a preliminary injunction is necessary to avoid irreparable harm. I have concluded that the National Trust is likely to succeed on the merits because no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have.”

Leon said in his ruling that his order can’t be enforced for 14 days, giving the Trump administration time to appeal and allow project leads to address the “logistical issues” raised by halting an ongoing construction project. He did also mention in his order that he assessed private documents provided by the government and concluded that suspending the project would not raise national security issues.

“…[S]o the principal question before the Court is whether the President has ‘“stepped so plainly beyond the bounds of [his statutory authority], or acted so clearly in defiance of it, as to warrant the immediate intervention of an equity court.”’ … Unfortunately, he has!” Leon concluded.

Trump posted a lengthy screed on Truth Social shortly after the Leon’s order was filed, calling the National Trust for Historic Preservation “a Radical Left Group of Lunatics” and questioning why the group has never sued California Gov. Gavin Newsom (??), among other things.

Trouble on the Noem Front

There is new reporting by the Daily Mail out today — that was, in part, confirmed by a representative for fired Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in a statement to the New York Post — that claims Noem’s husband Byron Noem has chatted online with fetish models and has worn body suits that make it appear as though he has large breasts. The claims in the Daily Mail report are salacious, which is why the Noem statement to the Post was so surprising. Per the Post:

“Ms. Noem is devastated. The family was blindsided by this, and they ask for privacy and prayers at the time,” Noem’s representatives told The Post.

I don’t know how else to explain the allegations, so I’ll just direct you to the source material here and here.

Dem Pens NYT Op-Ed on Trump’s Plans for Midterms

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) published a guest op-ed in the New York Times today outlining what he believes is Trump’s plan to “override” states’ authority to administer elections by elevating old conspiracy theories about the 2020 election to manufacture chaos. Trump hopes the scheme will give him a pretext to declare a national emergency, Warner explained, which he will try to use to justify sweeping changes to how America runs elections. (The White House released an executive order Tuesday evening just before we published this piece, which, ominously, directs the Department of Homeland to work with the Social Security Administration to compile a “list” of U.S. citizens who are elligible to vote in each state, to be shared with each states’ election officials.)

Warner, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, suggested that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s presence at the Fulton County raid in January, was a sign of a grander plot by Trump to create the impression of foreign interference in U.S. elections — also a pretext to declare such an emergency.

An excerpt of Warner’s warnings:

Ms. Gabbard’s appearance at this raid — as well as her involvement in seizing voting machines from Puerto Rico, again without any tie to foreign intelligence — was an extraordinary breach of the longstanding firewall between intelligence authorities and domestic political and law enforcement activity. One wonders what else she might be willing to do in service of Mr. Trump’s demands: Might she or another Trump official be willing to manufacture a claim of foreign interference in order to justify federal intervention in elections?

It is worth noting that people who played central roles in efforts to overturn the 2020 election are now operating inside the federal government with access to sensitive election security information and the ability to influence law enforcement actions. One example is Kurt Olsen, the White House’s director of election security and integrity. According to court filings, Mr. Olsen helped trigger the seizure of ballots in Georgia.

To intervene in the midterms at the federal level, Ms. Gabbard would not even need to fabricate intelligence outright. She could selectively release fragments of existing intelligence collection, stripping out caveats and context in ways that create a distorted impression of a threat.

In Case You Missed It

On today’s SCOTUS decision, from Kate Riga: Kagan, Sotomayor Join Conservatives in Finding Conversion Therapy Ban Violates Therapists’ Speech Rights

Morning Memo: Pam Bondi’s New Man on the Bogus Election Fraud Beat

Hunter Walker: Mark Robinson Comes Clean (Sort Of) and Tries to Sell Some Content

Yesterday’s Most Read Story

Trump’s Iran War Objectives Have Collapsed. Now What?

What We Are Reading

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