Last March, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon ruled that President Donald Trump's White House ballroom project is illegal because "no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have." But even if higher courts ultimately agree with Leon, a Justice Department lawyer argued on Friday, they cannot stop the project.
The lawyer, Yaakov Roth, was asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to overturn Leon's preliminary injunction, which it temporarily stayed in April, or block it while the case, National Trust for Historic Preservation v. NPS, is pending. Because the ballroom project serves national security interests and is already pretty far along, Roth said, it would be an "abuse of discretion" to order that it be halted pending congressional approval.
