The United States Supreme Court granted a victory on Monday to President Donald Trump, deciding to allow him to continue indefinitely with the construction of a ballroom in the White House, a controversial project that the president has persistently advocated for and that had faced legal challenges.
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The court ruled, by five votes to four, in favor of the emergency request filed by the Department of Justice to invalidate the rulings of lower court judges who had ordered the works to be blocked – except for those affecting the security bunker in the basement of the future ballroom – considering that only Congress had the authority to authorize works inside the White House.
The Supreme Court had already issued an order on August 21 to allow the works to continue provisionally while it deliberated on the emergency request filed by the Trump administration.
The project involved the destruction of the old East Wing and provoked harsh criticism
In the unsigned ruling, the court argues that it is likely that the National Trust for Historic Preservation lacks standing to file the lawsuit that ended up blocking the works in the above-ground area.
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In this regard, the Supreme Court did not publish any conclusion on whether Trump has the authority to carry out the construction without Congress’s approval.
The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, joined the dissenting vote of the court’s three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Kentanji Brown Jackson.
Roberts himself stated that “it is likely that such construction is illegal.”
The ballroom project, promoted by Trump to expand the facilities for official White House events and receptions, involved the destruction of the old East Wing of the presidential residence and has drawn harsh criticism from various sectors.
