Admin: WH Construction Security Matter 12/16 06:05

   

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Trump administration said in a court filing Monday 
that the president's White House ballroom construction project must continue 
for unexplained national security reasons and because a preservationists' 
organization that wants it stopped has no standing to sue.

   The filing was in response to a lawsuit filed last Friday by the National 
Trust for Historic Preservation asking a federal judge to halt President Donald 
Trump's project until it goes through multiple independent reviews and a public 
comment period and wins approval from Congress.

   The administration's 36-page filing included a declaration from Matthew C. 
Quinn, deputy director of the U.S. Secret Service, the agency responsible for 
the security of the president and other high-ranking officials, that said more 
work on the site of the former White House East Wing is still needed to meet 
the agency's "safety and security requirements." The filing did not explain the 
specific national security concerns; the administration has offered to share 
classified details with the judge in a private, in-person setting without the 
plaintiffs present.

   The East Wing had sat atop a emergency operations bunker for the president.

   Quinn said even a temporary halt to construction would "consequently hamper" 
the agency's ability to fulfill its statutory obligations and its protective 
mission.

   A hearing in the case was scheduled for Tuesday in federal court in 
Washington.

   The government's response offered the most comprehensive look yet at the 
ballroom construction project, including a window into how it was so swiftly 
approved by the Trump administration bureaucracy and its expanding scope.

   The filings assert that final plans for the ballroom have yet to be 
finalized despite the continuing demolition and other work to prepare the site 
for eventual construction. Below-ground work on the site continues, wrote John 
Stanwich, the National Park Service's liaison to the White House, and work on 
the foundations is set to begin in January. Above-ground construction "is not 
anticipated to begin until April 2026, at the earliest," he wrote.

   The National Trust for Historic Preservation did not respond to email 
messages seeking comment.

   The privately funded group last week asked the U.S. District Court to block 
Trump's project.

   "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 lawsuit states. "And no president is legally allowed to 
construct a ballroom on public property without giving the public the 
opportunity to weigh in."

   Trump had the East Wing torn down in October as part of his plan to build an 
estimated $300 million, 90,000-square-foot (27,432-square-meter) ballroom able 
to accommodate about 1,000 people before his term ends in January 2029. He says 
presidents before him long have wanted an event space larger than the rooms 
currently at the White House, and says the ballroom would end the practice of 
entertaining visiting foreign dignitaries in large, temporary pavilions on the 
south grounds.

   The Trust asserts that the plans should have been submitted to the National 
Capital Planning Commission, the Commission of Fine Arts and Congress before 
any action was taken. The lawsuit notes that the Trust wrote to those entities 
and the National Park Service on Oct. 21, after East Wing demolition began, 
urging a stop to the project and asking the administration to comply with 
federal law, but received no response.

   The lawsuit cites several federal statutes and rules detailing the role the 
planning and fine arts commission and lawmakers play in U.S. government 
construction projects.

   The administration argued in its response that the president has the 
authority to modify the White House and included the extensive history of 
changes and additions to the Executive Mansion since it was built more than 200 
years ago. It also asserted that the president is not subject to the statutes 
cited by the plaintiffs.

   Department of Justice attorneys said in the filing that the plaintiff's 
claims about the East Wing demolition are "moot" because the tear-down cannot 
be undone. The administration also argues that claims about future construction 
are "unripe" because the plans are not final.

   The administration also contends that the Trust cannot establish 
"irreparable harm" because above-ground construction is not expected until 
spring. It argues that the reviews sought in the lawsuit, consultation with the 
National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts, "will 
soon be underway without this Court's involvement."

   Trump's ballroom project has prompted criticism in the historic preservation 
and architectural communities, and among his political adversaries, but the 
lawsuit is the most tangible effort thus far to alter or stop his plans for an 
addition that itself would be nearly twice the size of the White House before 
the East Wing was torn down.

   In 2000, the National Park Service's Comprehensive Design Plan for the White 
House first identified the need for a larger event space to address an increase 
in visitors and to provide a venue suitable for major events, according to the 
administration's filing.