The demolition of the East Wing of the White Home throughout development of U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed ballroom is seen from the reopened Washington Monument, following the longest shutdown of the federal government in Washington, D.C., U.S., Nov. 15, 2025.
Jessica Koscielniak | Reuters
A federal choose in a revised order on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from above-ground development work on the controversial proposed White Home ballroom.
However Choose Richard Leon’s order permits the administration to proceed below-ground development, together with work associated to nationwide safety amenities.
Leon’s order can also be permitting above-ground development “that’s strictly essential to cowl, safe, and shield such nationwide safety amenities,” so long as that development doesn’t “lock within the above-ground measurement and scale of the ballroom,” based on his injunction in U.S. District Court docket in Washington, D.C.
The Trump administration shortly appealed the order to the U.S. Circuit Court docket of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Leon had paused his order from taking impact for seven days.
President Donald Trump raged about Leon’s order in a Fact Social submit.
“A Trump Hating, Washington, D.C. District Court docket Choose, a person who has gone out of his technique to undermine Nationwide Safety, and to make it possible for this Nice Reward to America will get delayed, or would not get constructed, is making an attempt to forestall future Presidents and World Leaders from having a protected and safe massive scale Assembly Place, or Ballroom, one with Bomb Shelters,” Trump wrote.
The order comes 5 days after the Court docket of Appeals informed Leon to make clear an order he issued on March 31 that blocked the Trump administration from taking any motion to construct the deliberate $400 million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom the place the White Home’s East Wing as soon as stood. The East Wing was demolished final yr to make means for the mission at Trump’s behest.
The appeals courtroom particularly informed Leon to rethink the potential nationwide safety implications of blocking the development.
The administration had informed the appeals courtroom that Leon’s injunction was “threatening grave national-security harms to the White Home, the President and his household, and the President’s workers.”
Leon, in an opinion Thursday, mentioned, “The Court docket has taken Defendants’ invocation of nationwide safety and presidential safety significantly all through this case, which is why I included a safety-and-security exception in my authentic Order.”
“However nationwide safety isn’t a clean verify to proceed with in any other case illegal exercise, and belated assertions that the above-ground ballroom is ‘inseparable’ from an array of safety features … will not be an event for this Court docket to reweigh the equities or rethink the preliminary injunction!” the choose wrote.
The Nationwide Belief for Historic Preservation is suing the Trump administration to dam the ballroom from being constructed.
Leon, in two prior choices, had declined requests by that group to halt the mission.
However in his March 31 ruling to difficulty an injunction towards the ballroom, Leon mentioned that no regulation “comes shut” to giving Trump the facility to construct such a construction on the White Home with out authorization by Congress.
That injunction excluded work that’s “strictly vital to make sure the security and safety of the White Home and its grounds, together with the ballroom development website, and supply for the private security of the President and his workers.”
“The President of the US is the steward of the White Home for future generations of First Households. He isn’t, nonetheless, the proprietor,” Leon wrote in his opinion explaining his ruling that day.
In his amended order on Thursday, the choose slapped down arguments by the Trump administration that all the ballroom mission may proceed on nationwide safety grounds.
“Defendants argue that all the ballroom development mission, from tip to tail, falls inside the safety-and-security exception and due to this fact could proceed unabated,” Leon wrote within the opinion issued on Thursday, with the amended injunction. “That’s neither an inexpensive nor an accurate studying of my Order!”
“The accompanying opinion acknowledged that ‘the ballroom development mission should cease till Congress authorizes its completion,'” Leon famous.
“It’s, to say the least, unimaginable, if not disingenuous, that Defendants now argue that my Order doesn’t cease ballroom development due to the safety-and-security exception!”
The choose mentioned that the brand new order, in enjoining above-ground development from continuing, immediately addresses the danger that the Nationwide Belief would endure irreparable hurt by constructing of the ballroom.
And, “The exception for underground nationwide safety amenities doesn’t embody the proposed ballroom as a result of Defendants themselves distinguished between below-ground and above-ground development, stating that “the below-surface work is pushed by nationwide safety issues unbiased of the above-grade development,” the choose mentioned.