A federal appeals court was right to slam the brakes on Trump's $400 million ballroom — Congress never authorized this project, and no president gets to demolish a historic landmark and rebuild it however he wants just because he feels like it. The East Wing is gone, the White House grounds look like a construction site, and Trump's other D.C. "beautification" schemes have already embarrassed the country. The courts have made it clear: the White House belongs to the people, not to whoever happens to be living there.
This ballroom fight is about far more than aesthetics — a $500 million no-bid contract, a donor list packed with defense and intelligence contractors, and a funding agreement kept secret for six months all point to something being built underground that Congress never voted on. The "ballroom" is legal cover for a classified federal facility, and the DOJ's Sunday-morning demand to kill the lawsuit before a June 5 hearing was designed to bury that question permanently. The constitutional precedent being set here will outlast the building itself.
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