Attorney General Todd Blanche insists that President Trump doesn’t need congressional approval for his White House ballroom project.
The ongoing battle over the ballroom isn’t just about whether the president and the nation need a glitzy new event space or whether the 90,000-square-foot plans will aesthetically overpower the roughly 55,000-square-foot White House residence.
It’s not only about national security needs, either, given that the federal judges who have ruled that aboveground work at the site must stop have also allowed underground construction of military and medical facilities to continue.
At its core, the fight over the ballroom project is about presidential authority and Congress’s power of the purse.
A federal appeals court ruled in a 2-1 decision earlier this month that “the Constitution assigns Congress—not the Executive—the responsibility to decide whether proposed changes to the physical design of the White House may proceed, even where those changes are said to serve security interests.” It added: “Whether or not a massive ballroom should be constructed is for Congress to decide and is not a matter for Executive self-help.”
The Trump administration insists that’s wrong. It continues to argue that the president has full authority to renovate the White House — and to use congressionally appropriated funds for the care, maintenance and improvement of the executive residence.
The administration asserted that on Friday when it asked the Supreme Court to step in and allow construction to continue before a halt ordered by a lower court takes effect on August 21. Then on Sunday, Blanche claimed that Trump has the authority to move ahead with the project.
In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” host Shannon Bream read from the appeals court ruling.
“Why not just go to Congress” she asked.
“We don't believe we have to go Congress,” Blanche responded. “We believe Congress has already given us the authority to do what we're doing. Many presidents have done a tremendous amount of work to the White House, as they should, and Congress has authorized them to do so. So we have a fundamental disagreement with those two judges [on the appeals court].”
Blanche went on to say that Trump “has said for many months now, almost a year, that he has the authority to do this, and he said that because he absolutely does have the authority to do this. And we're hopeful that the Supreme Court recognizes that so we can get the ballroom finished as soon as possible.”
Money for J6 rioters? In a separate “Meet the Press” interview Sunday, Blanche, who had been Trump’s personal attorney, refused to pledge that his Justice Department would be independent from the president and the White House.
“No, I’m not going to pledge that. And no attorney general should ever pledge that,” Blanche told host Kristen Welker.
In his Fox News interview, Blanche insisted that Trump “loves disagreement” and would expect to have the attorney general tell him when he differs on an issue.
Blanche also responded to concerns that the Justice Department’s $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund isn’t truly dead, or that the administration might still look to use federal funds to pay rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Blanche reiterated that he and Trump both believe that the Justice Department was weaponized against January 6 rioters and other Americans under the Biden administration.
“The Department of Justice over the last several years was weaponized against some people, but we are not using the anti-weaponization fund to compensate. To the extent that anybody in this country feels that a tort has been committed against them by the government, they can sue and that’s what Democrats said all along,” Blanche said.
The administration’s petition to the Supreme Court also says that the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which sued to stop the ballroom project, does not have the legal standing to challenge the construction. It also argues that the project must be completed for national security reasons.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation responded to the administration’s emergency application to the Supreme Court by accusing the administration of ignoring judges and “actively attempting to outrun the courts by accelerating construction.” It noted in a statement that the government’s court filing “announced it would be installing another one million pounds of rebar and pouring another 3,000 cubic yards of concrete in just the next week alone.”
“The Administration’s transparent efforts to evade the rule of law, frustrate judicial review, and limit the availability of meaningful relief in the courts must stop here,” the group said.
The bottom line: The legal battle will likely come to a head soon, but construction on the project is rapidly progressing as the courts consider the case.