Judge Again Halts Aboveground Construction on Trump's Ballroom

WASHINGTON -- Aboveground construction on President Donald Trump's White House ballroom must halt until lawmakers authorize the project, a judge ruled Thursday, saying the president appeared intent on skirting a previous order by redefining the ballroom project as a critical national security upgrade.

The ruling escalated the legal standoff over the president's plan to overhaul the White House grounds, which Judge Richard J. Leon had previously decided exceeded what a president can do at a historic building like the White House without approval from Congress.

Leon said that adding features like bulletproof windows and other standard security features that exist throughout the White House did not exempt the ballroom project from his directives.

"National security is not a blank check to proceed with otherwise unlawful activity," Leon wrote.

Leon paused his order for a week, giving the president until April 23 to lodge a new appeal. And he wrote that his new order would allow the administration to continue to work belowground, including construction on a bunker that Trump has said is necessary for national security.

Leon had previously agreed to allow work on the project to continue, but only temporarily to allow for an appeal. An appeals court then agreed the work could continue, but only until April 17, to allow time for Leon to weigh in again on arguments the Trump administration made that the project is necessary to make national security improvements at the White House.

In October, Trump abruptly tore down the East Wing to make space for a 90,000-square-foot ballroom that he is financing with at least $350 million raised from corporate donors and political allies.

In April, after nearly four months of litigation, Leon sided with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, an organization chartered by Congress to protect historical sites and buildings, which had sued to stop the sudden redevelopment of the White House.

But almost immediately after Leon concluded that the president had bypassed Congressional oversight, the president and his staff began to describe the project to the court in new ways.

Trump had previously complained about a lack of indoor space for major events at the White House, proposing the ballroom as a practical solution for a long-standing logistical constraint past administrations have had to work around.

But this month, his lawyers told the court that the project is less about adding event space and more about overhauling the security of the White House compound. In recent weeks, Trump has said that the proposed ballroom is only the aboveground portion of a sprawling bunker complex that the military has helped plan as a replacement to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center.

To preempt concerns that his order could jeopardize safety around the White House, Leon allowed a narrow exception to his April order permitting work on security infrastructure that may have been torn out in the hurried construction. Yet at that time, Leon said he would block the construction because most of the concerns about security at the complex had been created by launching construction hastily.

"While I take seriously the Government's concerns regarding the safety and security of the White House grounds and the President himself, the existence of a 'large hole' beside the White House is, of course, a problem of the President's own making!" he wrote.

Trump has seized on Leon's narrow national security exception to argue that he was allowed to proceed with almost every element of the ballroom plan, from installing windows and a roof to the construction of a new bunker beneath the building, because all include security features.

Reacting to the ruling online, Trump repeated complaints he has previously lodged about Leon and the lawsuit, which was filed roughly two months after the president demolished the East Wing. Trump listed more than half a dozen security features he said would be delayed under Thursday's order.

"A Trump Hating, Washington, D.C. District Court Judge, a man who has gone out of his way to undermine National Security, and to make sure that this Great Gift to America gets delayed, or doesn't get built, is attempting to prevent future Presidents and World Leaders from having a safe and secure large scale Meeting Place, or Ballroom," Trump wrote.

In a second message, he wrote, "Too much hard work, time, and money spent in order that a Judge can claim that he ruled against 'DONALD TRUMP,' something which I have gotten very used to, BUT WILL NOT ACCEPT!"

He did not explain what he meant. The administration immediately appealed, returning the matter to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

On Thursday, Leon stressed that he had, from the beginning, sought a reasonable solution that addressed the National Trust's concerns. He lamented that Trump's tactics had forced him to unnecessarily scrutinize every detail of the project, when the spirit and scope of his order seemed clear.

"I have no desire or intention to be dragooned into the role of construction manager," he wrote.

The National Trust has described the ballroom as a vanity project that sacrificed a large portion of the historical structure to satisfy the president's whims and leave his personal imprint on the building.

Now the National Trust argues the administration has shifted the goal posts with its security arguments and had urged Leon to hold firm on blocking most construction until Congress allows it.

"The defendants believe they can ignore this court's injunction and continue constructing a project they very much do not want to stop," the organization wrote Tuesday. "This court should not abide such subterfuge."

The Trump administration has asked the appeals court to block Leon's order entirely, which a three-judge panel has so far declined to do. The administration has also indicated it plans to ask the Supreme Court to weigh in if the lower courts block construction.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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This story was originally published April 16, 2026 at 5:50 PM.