President Donald Trump on Tuesday shared court filings by his administration urging a federal judge to lift an order blocking the White House ballroom’s construction, describing it as a facility that would “protect” the president after Saturday’s shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Construction cranes are seen, from the Washington Monument, on the site of the former East Wing of the White House, where the ballroom is planned.
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In a filing made before the D.C. federal court, the Justice Department urged Judge Richard J. Leon to rescind an order blocking the construction of the ballroom, arguing Saturday’s “attempted assassination…could have never taken place in the new facility.”
The filing accuses the plaintiffs, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, of suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” an insult the president uses to dismiss criticism of himself and his actions.
The Trump administration argued presidents need a secure space for large events that currently does not exist, and halting the ballroom would impact the safety of “Trump, future Presidents, and their families.”
The DOJ also notes that it had reached out to the plaintiff to drop its case against the ballroom after Saturday’s shooting, but the group refused the request.
In the filing, the DOJ notes: “The attack confirms that this Court’s injunction is intolerable…In its most recent opinion, the Court stated that there is no ‘national security justification’ for why a secure ballroom must be constructed ‘immediately.’ Those assertions were wrong then, and they are indefensible now.”
A supplementary filing made by the Trump administration included a declaration from Matthew Quinn, the deputy director of the Secret Service, in support of the ballroom. Quinn argued that Saturday’s shooting “highlights the inherent risks and security challenges associated with large-scale events held in off-site, commercial venues that are not owned, designed, and controlled by the United States government for protective purposes.” He argued that even when no one is harmed, the cancelation of such events due to a security incident can impede the president's ability to perform his duties. Quinn’s statement then describes the ballroom as a “key component of providing a secure environment for the President to fulfill his duties.”
Trump’s Truth Social posts sharing snippets of the filings did not include any comments from the president. But on Sunday morning, he posted: “What happened last night is exactly the reason that our great Military, Secret Service, Law Enforcement and, for different reasons, every President for the last 150 years, have been DEMANDING that a large, safe, and secure Ballroom be built ON THE GROUNDS OF THE WHITE HOUSE…It cannot be built fast enough!”
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