The US Department of J Justice has used the weekend shooting in Washington DC to pressure a preservation group to drop a lawsuit seeking to halt the construction of Donald Trump’s White House ballroom.
Several Trump administration officials, including the president, seized on the incident at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner to advance their case for the completion of the controversial $400m project, for which the White House’s East Wing was suddenly demolished, arguing the new ballroom was needed as a “safe space”.
On Sunday night, Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, posted on social media a letter to lawyers representing the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) calling the trust’s lawsuit “frivolous”. It demanded that the organization voluntarily withdraw it or face a new dismissal motion from the Department of Justice.
“Put simply, your lawsuit puts the lives of the President, his family, and staff at grave risk,” the letter, signed by Brett Shumate, assistant attorney general of the justice department’s civil division, said.
“I hope yesterday’s narrow miss will help you finally realize the folly of a lawsuit that literally serves no purpose except to stop President Trump no matter the cost.”
Shumate said the White House ballroom was “essential for the safety of the president, his family, his cabinet, and his staff”, claiming that the Washington Hilton where Saturday’s shooting occurred was currently the only ballroom in the capital large enough to host such large gatherings, and was “demonstrably unsafe”.
The letter echoed a claim posted by Trump on his Truth Social network on Sunday in which the president insisted that security agencies and “every President for the last 150 years, have been demanding that a large, safe, and secure ballroom be built on the grounds of the White House”.
“It’s time to build the ballroom,” Blanche wrote on X in his repost of Shumate’s letter.
Trump’s pursuit of a new ballroom on the site of the former East Wing of the White House, which he demolished last year, has followed a rocky legal path in recent weeks.
In March, district court judge Richard Leon, in Washington DC, granted a request for a preliminary injunction by the non-profit trust, which alleged Trump exceeded his authority by razing the East Wing and beginning construction on the ballroom without required congressional approval.
A three-judge panel of the US court of appeals for Washington DC granted a stay of Leon’s order earlier this month, allowing construction to continue while the lawsuit proceeds.
The panel said its order “should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion”, meaning that the future of the entire project for the 1,000-seat ballroom, on a footprint larger than the White House itself, remained in peril. The next hearing in the case is tentatively scheduled for 5 June.
Shumate’s letter said he would be available to the trust’s lawyers on Monday “to discuss ending this unnecessary and dangerous litigation.”
The Guardian has contacted the NTHP for comment. In a statement on its website following the appeals panel’s 11 April order allowing construction to resume, the trust said it planned to pursue its lawsuit.
“The National Trust remains committed to honoring the historic significance of the White House, advocating for our collective role as stewards, and demonstrating how broad consultation, including with the American people, results in a better overall outcome,” it said.
