The White House ballroom construction lawsuit is National Trust for Historic Preservation v. National Park Service, filed December 12, 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which challenges President Donald Trump’s demolition of the East Wing and construction of a roughly 90,000-square-foot event space on the grounds without congressional authorization, environmental review, or the planning approvals normally required before building on federal land in Washington. A federal judge sided with the Trust in March 2026 and ordered above-ground work halted. The D.C. Circuit then stayed that order, construction resumed, and as of mid-2026 the appeals court has not ruled, Congress has refused to fund the project, and the case looks likely to reach the Supreme Court.
What Was Torn Down and What Is Going Up
The White House announced in July 2025 that it would demolish the East Wing, built in 1902 and significantly renovated in 1942, and replace it with a ballroom seating 650 people, later expanded to 900. The East Wing came down along with six historic trees and the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden. Construction began in September 2025.
The price tag climbed steadily. The White House initially described the project as costing roughly $200 million, funded entirely by the president and private donors. Reporting placed the cost at $300 million by late 2025, and a White House official confirmed in October 2025 that $350 million had already been raised. By the time the case reached court in 2026, the project was widely described as a $400 million undertaking.
Who Is Suing and What They Claim
The National Trust for Historic Preservation brought the case as case number 1:25-cv-04316, naming the National Park Service and other federal defendants and asking the court to declare the project unlawful and stop construction. The complaint, later amended, alleges violations of several statutes and the Constitution:
- The National Capital Planning Act, because the administration did not submit plans to the National Capital Planning Commission or the Commission of Fine Arts before demolition and construction.
- The National Environmental Policy Act, because no environmental assessment or environmental impact statement was prepared before the project began.
- 40 U.S.C. § 8106, which requires “express authority” from Congress before erecting structures on federal public grounds in Washington, D.C.
- The Property Clause of the Constitution, which vests authority over federal property in Congress rather than the president.
- The National Park Service’s Organic Act and 3 U.S.C. § 105, the statute that provides roughly $2.5 million for “care, maintenance, repair, alteration, refurnishing, improvement, air-conditioning, heating, and lighting” of the Executive Residence.
The Trust argues the § 105 language covers upkeep of existing structures and cannot authorize demolishing an entire wing and building a new facility at 160 times that appropriation. On the preservation side, the complaint says the ballroom’s scale would “overwhelm the White House itself” and “permanently disrupt its carefully balanced classic design.” The Campaign Legal Center, which assisted in the litigation, added that relying on private donations for a project of this magnitude created a “substantial risk of quid pro quo corruption.”
Standing
The government challenged whether the Trust could bring the case at all. The Trust pointed to Alison Hoagland, a history and historic preservation professor and Trust member, arguing that the ballroom would permanently alter the architectural character of the complex she studies and disrupt her use of President’s Park. The Justice Department called this a “classic generalized grievance” and also argued that the harms were effectively moot because the East Wing had already been demolished months before the suit was filed.
The Government’s Defense
The Justice Department contends existing law already authorizes the project. It points to 3 U.S.C. § 105(d) and the NPS Organic Act of 1916, which directs the Park Service to “promote and regulate” national parks, as providing the required authority. DOJ attorney Yaakov Roth cited historical precedents such as the 1970s White House swimming pool and comfort stations on the National Mall. The administration also argues that the Executive Residence can receive donated funds channeled through the Park Service under the Economy Act.
Judge Leon’s Preliminary Injunction
On March 31, 2026, Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Leon issued a preliminary injunction ordering construction to stop until Congress authorized the project. Leon found the Trust likely to succeed on the merits and wrote that “the President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!”
Leon rejected the administration’s statutory theories. He ruled that 3 U.S.C. § 105’s $2.5 million maintenance allowance does not authorize “wholesale demolition of entire buildings and construction of new ones,” likening the permitted scope to “replacing the lightbulbs, fixing broken furniture and changing the wallpaper.” He called the Justice Department’s reading “brazen” and, citing the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Loper Bright v. Raimondo, said courts have a duty to find the “single, best meaning” of statutes rather than defer to “utterly unreasonable” executive readings. He also dismissed the fundraising mechanism, in which private donations were routed through the Park Service and the Office of the Executive Residence, as a “Rube Goldberg contraption” that did not amount to congressional authorization.
The order carried two carve-outs. Leon allowed continued work on below-ground facilities, specifically a secure bunker, under a “safety and security” exception, and he stayed enforcement for 14 days so the administration could appeal. On April 16, Leon issued a revised order clarifying that all above-ground construction was prohibited, with a narrow exception for work “strictly necessary to cover, secure, and protect” the national security facilities below ground, provided it did not “lock in the above-ground size and scale of the ballroom.” Leon rejected the argument that the ballroom and the security features were inseparable and wrote that “national security is not a blank check to proceed with otherwise unlawful activity.”
The Appeal and Where the Case Stands
The administration appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. On April 11, 2026, a panel remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings and extended the stay of Leon’s injunction until April 17. On April 17, the appeals court issued a temporary hold on Leon’s order, allowing construction to continue pending the full appeal. Construction resumed without interruption, and by the time of the June 2026 appellate hearing, above-ground portions of the new structure had risen on the site of the former East Wing.
At the June 5, 2026 oral argument, the three-judge panel heard more than two hours of argument. Yaakov Roth took the position that even if the construction were ruled unlawful, courts lacked authority to order the ballroom torn down, and that only Congress could intervene. “I think it would have been improper to enjoin it even on day one,” Roth argued.
Judge Patricia Millett responded sharply, characterizing the government’s strategy as “move fast and break things and then nobody has standing.” She posed a hypothetical about the government bulldozing the Statue of Liberty and asked: “If this were complete lawlessness by the government, it couldn’t be stopped?” Judge Bradley Garcia pressed the statutory point, noting that the $2.5 million maintenance allowance plainly does not authorize major construction and that 40 U.S.C. § 8106’s requirement of congressional approval for structures on federal land in Washington could be “the end of the case.” Garcia also observed that the Organic Act might provide “implicit authority” but not the “express authority” the statute demands. Millett pointed to an internal contradiction in the government’s position: the Justice Department had previously insisted the Executive Residence was not an “executive agency” to avoid Administrative Procedure Act review, yet was now invoking the Economy Act, which applies to agencies, to justify the construction. Judge Neomi Rao appeared more sympathetic to the administration, reiterating the view that the Trust may lack standing and noting national security interests.
The panel had not issued a ruling as of mid-June 2026. Legal observers expected a decision within weeks and noted the case was likely headed to the Supreme Court regardless of the outcome. No emergency application to the Supreme Court had been filed as of mid-2026.
Congress Has Refused to Authorize the Project
Because Leon’s ruling turned on the absence of congressional authorization, attention shifted to Capitol Hill, where multiple efforts failed.
On April 29, 2026, Senator Lindsey Graham introduced the White House Safety and Security Act of 2026 (S. 4430), co-sponsored by Senators Katie Britt and Eric Schmitt, which would have appropriated $400 million for the “East Wing Modernization Project,” including the ballroom, a visitor screening facility, and related national security infrastructure. The bill was referred to the Senate Finance Committee. Senator Rand Paul separately filed a joint resolution that would authorize the construction without government funding, allowing the project to proceed with private money alone.
The administration also pursued a reconciliation strategy. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley included a $1 billion Secret Service funding request in a $72 billion immigration enforcement bill, with language earmarking portions for “above-ground and below-ground security features” of the ballroom while specifying that no funds could be used for “non-security elements.” The administration claimed only $220 million of the billion would go specifically to the ballroom and general White House security upgrades. The White House explicitly linked passage of the reconciliation bill to congressional approval of the project.
That approach collapsed on May 16, 2026, when Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that the $1 billion provision violated the Byrd Rule, which prohibits extraneous, non-budgetary provisions in reconciliation legislation. Senator Jeff Merkley, the ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee, had argued the provision fell outside the Judiciary Committee’s jurisdiction. Senate Majority Leader John Thune cited both the parliamentarian’s ruling and insufficient support among Republican senators. His communications director said the plan was to “redraft, refine, resubmit,” but as of mid-2026 no revised provision had advanced. Senator John Kennedy confirmed bluntly: “We were told that the ballroom money is out.”
On May 28, 2026, 143 members of Congress, led by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representatives Robert Garcia and Jared Huffman, filed an amicus brief in the D.C. Circuit arguing that the Constitution grants Congress exclusive power to authorize federal property construction, that the president cannot demolish a wing of the White House without clear congressional authorization and a formal appropriation, and that the project violates “express statutory prohibition.”
The Donor-Funding Question
Donations for the ballroom flow through the Trust for the National Mall, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that is not legally required to disclose individual contributions. The White House eventually released a list of 37 donors but withheld contribution amounts. The roster included Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Lockheed Martin, Palantir, T-Mobile, and Coinbase, along with individuals such as Stephen Schwarzman, Harold Hamm, the Winklevoss twins, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s family.
A watchdog investigation reported in June 2026 that more than half of the publicly identified donors had secured new or expanded federal contracts totaling over $50 billion during the preceding six months. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington found that at least 23 donors who are registered lobbyists appeared to have failed to disclose their contributions as required by the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act.
A lawsuit by Public Citizen forced the disclosure of the fundraising agreement, which revealed that the contract shields donor identities and excludes the White House from conflict-of-interest protections. Kathleen Clark of Washington University characterized the arrangement as “coercively extracting money from donors to fund his pet projects.” Kedric Payne of the Campaign Legal Center said “this is so much bigger than the ballroom” and pointed to a broader pattern of private fundraising for government projects. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the approach, saying the project is privately funded and urging critics to “just trust the process.”
The White House is exempt from Section 106 review under the National Historic Preservation Act, and past administrations have voluntarily submitted construction plans to the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts. The Trump administration proceeded without doing so at first and submitted plans only after demolition was already underway. That sequence is part of what the Trust asks the courts to correct.