The Trump administration told a federal appeals court Tuesday that an alleged effort to attack the UFC event at the White House proves why the government should be allowed to build a new White House ballroom, as the court weighs whether to halt construction of the controversial structure.
UFC fights take place on the South Lawn of the White House on June 14 in Washington, DC.
Getty Images
A federal appeals court is now deliberating on whether the Trump administration has the authority to build President Donald Trump’s planned ballroom at the White House, after a lower court ruled the structure can’t be built without congressional approval.
The Trump administration filed a letter with the court Tuesday, after the FBI announced earlier in the day it had charged five people with attempting to carry out an attack at the White House’s UFC fight over the weekend.
The defendants allegedly intended to deploy drones with explosives “in and around” the UFC event in order to force an evacuation, and then target “high value” officials at the event using snipers, according to the FBI.
In the letter, the Justice Department alleged building a White House ballroom could ward off such “assassination” attempts in the future, claiming the structure’s “mass and height will shield the White House grounds from attack, and give the Secret Service the visibility needed to identify attackers.”
The Trump administration alleged the ballroom would include “critical strategic features” that would help defend against attacks, such as a drone proof roof, bulletproof windows and a rooftop outfitted with a drone port and sniper nests.
The filing echoes similar arguments the Trump administration made after the attack at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner—which a lower court judge was not receptive to—arguing in a filing that such an incident “could have never taken place” at the new ballroom.
“The repeated assassination attempts and plots against President Trump and those around him demonstrate the National Security imperative for a bullet proof, drone proof Ballroom to protect the President, all future Presidents, their Cabinets, staffs, families, and guests,” DOJ attorney Brett A. Shumate wrote in the government’s letter to the court Tuesday.
It’s unclear when the federal appeals court could rule on the fate of Trump’s ballroom, but construction on the structure has been allowed to move forward while the judges deliberate. If the courts ultimately approve the project, Trump said in May he thinks the ballroom would likely open in the fall of 2028.
$600 million. That’s how much the ballroom is now anticipated to cost, according to internal contractor estimates reported Tuesday by The Washington Post—far larger than the initial $200 million price tag initially announced for the project, which then went up to $400 million. While Trump originally promised the ballroom would be paid for through private donations, the Post reports internal communications show taxpayers are actually paying for slightly more than half of the ballroom’s total cost, largely through the Secret Service and White House Military Office. Trump has more recently claimed government funding will only be used to cover parts of the building that are dedicated to security functions, while the actual ballroom will only be privately funded. Experts cited by the Post suggested that’s not really possible, given it’s all one structure, and it’s “inevitable” that parts of the ballroom will end up being publicly funded.
Trump’s planned 90,000 square foot ballroom, first announced last summer, has become a major source of controversy for the president, with an April poll finding 56% of Americans oppose the construction project. The lawsuit opposing the structure was brought by the nonprofit National Trust for Historic Preservation, which argues the executive branch does not have authority to construct the new ballroom without congressional approval, and that the ballroom and destruction of the previous East Wing harms people who enjoy the White House’s grounds and appreciate its history. The Trump administration has fought the litigation, arguing construction is already too far along for the project to be stopped by the courts. Judge Richard Leon ruled against the government in March, writing that while Trump is the “steward” of the White House, he is “not the owner,” and “no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have” to build the ballroom. The federal appeals court has allowed construction to continue in the meantime, though multiple judges expressed skepticism about the government’s position when they heard arguments in the case earlier in June.
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