Separation of Powers

D.C. Circuit Upholds Injunction Against Trump's Ballroom

The Constitution assigns control of federal property to Congress, which never approved the president's demolition and replacement of the East Wing.

Jacob Sullum | 8.10.2026 9:10 AM

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(Andrew Leyden/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom.)

President Donald Trump demolished the East Wing of the White House last October, planning to replace it with a new structure that includes a 90,000-square-foot ballroom. Trump did not have the legal authority to do that, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled on Friday, saying he may not complete the project unless and until Congress approves it.

"Each President is a temporary tenant, not the owner, of the White House and its Executive Residence," writes Judge Patricia Millett, a Barack Obama appointee, in an opinion joined by Judge Bradley Garcia, who was nominated by President Joe Biden. "We are aware of no instance in American history in which a President unilaterally and using privately collected funds demolished substantial portions of the White House that Congress authorized to be built and American taxpayers paid for. Until now."

The decision in National Trust for Historic Preservation v. National Park Service upholds a preliminary injunction that U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush nominee, issued on March 31 and later modified to exclude underground construction and parts of the project "strictly necessary" for security purposes. Leon's order never took effect because the D.C. Circuit temporarily blocked it while the government's appeal was pending. The injunction remains on hold because the D.C. Circuit gave the Trump administration 14 days to file an appeal with the Supreme Court, which the president said he will do.

Whatever its ultimate effect, the D.C. Circuit's decision affirms the rule of law and the separation of powers by rejecting Trump's claim that he can do whatever he wants with the White House. According to Trump's logic, Millett notes, citing Leon's opinion, "the President could bulldoze the entire White House and replace it with a new building of his own design, including a 'skyscraper.'"

The government conceded that the Constitution assigns control of federal property to Congress. But it cited several statutes that it said combined to authorize his replacement of the East Wing with a huge, gaudy structure that would be 60 percent larger than the White House residence in square footage and more than three times as large in cubic volume.

Like Leon, the D.C. Circuit did not buy it. "Congress does not 'hide elephants in mouseholes,'" Millett says, quoting a 2001 opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia, whom Trump has described as the very model of a "great" jurist. "If Congress, acting against the backdrop of other statutes that strictly limit construction within Park System units
in the District of Columbia, and which require the........

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