Even if President Donald Trump's White House ballroom project is illegal, the Justice Department argued last week, federal courts are powerless to stop it. That assertion was consistent with Trump's general attitude toward judicial review, which he considers legitimate only when it allows him to do what he wants.
Last October, Trump demolished the East Wing of the White House, which he plans to replace with a building that would be 60 percent bigger than the Executive Residence in square footage and three times as big in cubic volume. In March, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, said the project required congressional approval because "no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims."
