WASHINGTON, Dec 16 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s plan to build a $300 million ballroom on White House grounds faces an early courtroom test on Tuesday after preservationists accused him of illegally tearing down the East Wing in a sweeping makeover critics call an abuse of power.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon scheduled a hearing for 3:30 p.m. (2030 GMT) in a lawsuit filed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation that accuses the Trump administration and several federal agencies of launching the 90,000-square-foot project without legally required reviews or approvals.
The president has made a string of changes to the White House since returning to office in January. He installed gold decorations throughout the Oval Office, and he paved over the lawn of the Rose Garden to create a patio similar to the setting at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
The massive ballroom would dwarf those alterations. Images of heavy machinery tearing into the White House’s 120-year-old East Wing to make way for the project ignited condemnation, as critics accused Trump of abusing presidential power.
“No president is legally allowed to tear down portions of the White House without any review whatsoever — not President Trump, not President Biden, and not anyone else,” the National Trust’s lawsuit said.
The group is seeking a temporary restraining order to halt construction while its case proceeds, arguing that the project has already caused “irreversible damage” to the White House and its grounds.
The administration in a filing on Monday said the project was lawful and followed in a long line of presidential renovations, including Franklin D. Roosevelt’s construction of the East Wing itself. The filing said the ballroom was needed for state functions, its design was still evolving and above-ground construction was not planned until April, making an emergency order unnecessary.
“The President possesses statutory authority to modify the structure of his residence, and that authority is supported by background principles of Executive power,” the filing said.
The lawsuit said Trump failed to gather public input and ignored statutes requiring consultation with the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts before tearing down the East Wing and starting work on the ballroom.
The National Trust said it sued the administration to force it to comply at a minimum “with the procedural requirements that inform and protect the public’s opportunity to comment on the Ballroom Project.”
(Reporting by Mike Scarcella; Editing by David Bario and Howard Goller)
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