The Alteration

Corruption of Power GriftMatrix

Trump demolished the East Wing, fired the reviewers, stacked the replacements, and called it an improvement.

The Trump administration has been playing a very specific game with the White House ballroom lawsuit, and yesterday a judge called it out.

For months, the DOJ has been telling courts that the ballroom project is run by the White House Executive Residence – a little-known office that conveniently falls outside the jurisdiction of the Administrative Procedure Act. That meant the National Trust for Historic Preservation couldn’t challenge it through normal legal channels. When Judge Richard Leon denied their first injunction in February, that was a big reason why. The office running the project technically wasn’t an “agency” the courts could review.

So the Trust refiled. And somewhere between February and this week’s hearing, the administration quietly changed its story. Now the project is being managed by the National Park Service. The Park Service is absolutely subject to federal rulemaking laws. The Park Service is absolutely reviewable by federal courts.

You see the problem.

Judge Leon saw it too. He raised his voice from the bench and asked the DOJ lawyer directly: “Who is directing this project?”

The answer he got was that the White House Executive Residence is “directing 100%” of the project and the Park Service only handles funding.

Leon’s response was blunt. “You can’t have it both ways.”

So, when the administration wanted to avoid judicial review, the project belonged to an office courts can’t touch. When they needed to argue the project follows proper federal procedures, suddenly the Park Service is involved. When the Trust pointed out that Park Service involvement means courts can review it, the DOJ tried to split the difference – Park Service handles money, the Residence handles everything else. That’s what Leon called a “shifting theories and shifting dynamics” approach to litigation, and he was not amused.

He also took a sledgehammer to the word “alteration.” Federal law gives the president authority to make alterations and improvements to the White House. The administration has been leaning on this language to justify the entire project without congressional approval.

Leon pointed out that demolishing an entire wing and replacing it with a structure nearly twice the size of the original White House is a pretty creative definition of “alteration.” He used the phrase “brazen interpretation of the laws of vocabulary,” which is about as close as a federal judge gets to calling you ridiculous to your face.

The math on this thing keeps getting worse, by the way. The ballroom is now pegged at $400 million, double the original $200 million estimate from eight months ago. The 90,000-square-foot addition dwarfs the 55,000-square-foot Executive Mansion. Over 97% of 32,000-plus public comments to the National Capital Planning Commission opposed it.

The NCPC – chaired by Trump’s own White House staff secretary Will Scharf – still delayed its vote to April 2nd because the opposition was so overwhelming they couldn’t rubber-stamp it on camera without looking absurd.

And the donor situation remains exactly as shady as it sounds. Hundreds of millions from corporations and individuals with active government business, a significant chunk from anonymous sources, and a Senate Democratic investigation calling it pay-to-play corruption. Constitutional lawyers have flagged it as a potential Anti-Deficiency Act violation – the law that exists specifically to prevent private money from being used for government purposes as an end-run around congressional spending authority. The whole funding structure, Leon said in a previous hearing, is basically a deliberately overcomplicated maze designed to make oversight impossible.

The Trust’s lawyer, Tad Heuer, told the court yesterday that the government put them on a “monthslong merry-go-round ride” about who’s in charge, and now claims the project is too far along to stop.

That’s the playbook. Demolish first, litigate later, change your legal theory whenever the current one stops working, and by the time anyone catches up, the foundation is already poured.

Judge Leon said he’ll rule by end of March. If he blocks above-ground construction – which could start as soon as April – the administration will appeal. If he doesn’t, the Trust will appeal. Either way this ends up at the DC Circuit, and possibly the Supreme Court, over a question that didn’t need to be a question at all.

Leon said it himself: the president could have just asked Congress. Republicans control both chambers. It probably would have passed. Instead, Trump chose to demolish first and argue about it later, which tells you everything about whether this is about hosting state dinners or about something else entirely.

If you want to weigh in before the April 2nd NCPC vote, the comment portal reopened March 16th at ncpc.gov.

Written comments are accepted until noon the day before. You can register to speak – virtually or in person – with the deadline for action items on March 25th and final registration closing April 1st at noon. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has a public participation page with guidance on what to include. They’re the only ones fighting this in court and they take donations.

A federal judge – appointed by George W. Bush – just told the administration he sees “no basis” and “zero” legislative history supporting their theory that the president can raise $400 million in private money to build whatever he wants on public land. The government’s best legal defense is that knocking down a wing of the White House and doubling its footprint counts as routine maintenance. And the guy deciding whether the project follows proper procedure is the same guy who works in the West Wing.

The only thing the Trump admin seems to be good at is grifting.

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