Garcia Leads 150 Democrats in White House East Wing Litigation Brief
Roughly 150 Democratic lawmakers escalated white house east wing litigation on Thursday by filing a legal brief saying construction at the East Wing cannot continue without express consent from Congress. The filing puts a large bloc of lawmakers on record in the fight over whether the Trump administration can keep building with private money while the case moves through court.
Lawyers for the Democrats wrote that, "The President cannot undertake any construction at the White House—much less demolish one of its wings—without clear authorization from Congress, as well as an appropriation of funds to do so." Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said, "President Trump is building a billion-dollar ballroom. Everyone should be disgusted by his illegal and unconstitutional vanity project. We are fighting this in court,"
Garcia, Huffman, Whitehouse
The coalition is led by Garcia, Jared Huffman of California and Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. Their brief argues that the president has no right to demolish structures or build new ones on White House grounds without clear congressional authorization and an appropriation of funds.
The administration has said a statute permitting routine maintenance and repairs at the White House gives it a legal basis for the privately funded $400 million demolition and construction of the East Wing. Congress has appropriated about $2.5 million for such repairs, a gap the lawmakers say shows why the project cannot proceed on the current footing.
March Ruling
The dispute is already in active litigation. The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued late last year, and in March a federal judge ruled that construction could not proceed until Congress green-lit the project. A panel of appellate judges later temporarily allowed construction to continue and said it will hear arguments next week.
That leaves the project in a narrow legal lane: the administration can point to a temporary appellate stay, while the lawmakers' filing asks the court to treat congressional approval as a required step before demolition or new construction can move ahead. On Wednesday, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the Campaign Legal Center filed briefs saying donations from companies and individuals with business before the government create a conflict of interest, and architects and preservationists argued that the president has no inherent authority to direct destruction of historic federal property within a national park and then use private funds to build a massive ballroom.
Todd Blanche Arguments
Todd Blanche has argued in recent filings that reconstruction of the East Wing is a matter of national security. He said last Saturday's shootings at the White House Correspondents' Dinner and near the Eisenhower Executive Office Building make completion of the project more urgent, and Senate Republicans briefly contemplated a measure that would have provided a billion dollars to bolster ballroom security before dropping the provision from a larger GOP bill.
The latest filing adds the weight of roughly 150 Democratic lawmakers to a dispute that now turns on who can authorize demolition, who can pay for it, and whether the White House can keep building while appellate judges weigh the case next week. For lawmakers and preservation groups, the immediate pressure is on the court to stop further work unless Congress gives the project the approval the brief says it still lacks.
