Is Trump building a ballroom or a military complex?
Trump’s 90,000-square-foot construction project comprises a luxury ballroom—which is meant to host 650 seated guests—with an underground military complex beneath it, featuring “protective missile resistant steel columns, beams, drone proof roofing materials, and bullet, ballistic, and blast proof glass,” according to one court document.
Lower courts treated the two components separately, finding that the National Trust was likely to establish that the aboveground ballroom required congressional approval while exempting underground security construction from the injunction.
In making his injunction determination, Leon said: “Defendants themselves distinguished between below-ground and above-ground construction, stating that ‘the below-surface work is driven by national security concerns independent of the above-grade construction.’”
Leon and the D.C. Circuit said the Administration had shifted from treating the components as independent to describing them as inseparable. The Administration disputes that characterization, saying the design became less flexible as construction progressed. It now argues that the entire project is integrated and that halting the aboveground work would compromise its structural integrity and security functions.
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