WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration said in a court filing Monday that the president’s White House ballroom construction project must go ahead for national security reasons.
The filing comes in response to a lawsuit filed Friday by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which asks a federal judge to halt the project until it undergoes multiple independent reviews and is approved by Congress.
The government included a statement from the deputy director of the U.S. Secret Service in the document, saying more work still needs to be done on the former White House East Wing site to meet the agency’s “safety and security requirements.” The government has offered to share confidential details face-to-face with a judge without the plaintiffs present.
The government’s response to the lawsuit provides the most comprehensive look yet at the ballroom construction project, including a look at how it was approved so quickly by the Trump administration bureaucracy and its expanding scope.
While demolition and construction work is underway, final plans for the ballroom are not yet complete, documents state. John Stanwich, the Park Service’s liaison to the White House, wrote that underground demolition at the site is continuing and foundation work will begin in January. Above-ground construction “is not expected to begin until April 2026 at the earliest,” he wrote.
The privately funded National Trust for Historic Preservation is asking a U.S. District Court to block Trump’s banquet hall expansion until it undergoes a comprehensive design review, environmental assessment, public comment and congressional debate and approval.
Trump demolished the East Wing in October as part of a project to build an estimated $300 million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom before the end of his term in 2029.
The project has drawn criticism from the historic preservation and architecture circles as well as his political opponents, but the lawsuit is the most tangible effort yet to change or block the president’s plans for an expansion that would be nearly twice the size of the White House before the East Wing was demolished.
The case is scheduled for a hearing in federal court in Washington on Tuesday.
