Ahead of a hearing Tuesday in a lawsuit that seeks to block construction of the new White House ballroom, Trump administration officials offered their most comprehensive explanation to date about the project and the opaque process that led to October’s demolition of the East Wing.
In court papers filed late Monday, the administration stressed that the plans for the 90,000-square-foot ballroom are “not final,” but it claimed that the massive project would cause “no significant impact” to the surrounding environment, and vowed that the White House would seek input from key agencies that review federal construction projects before above-ground work begins next year.
The lawsuit challenging the ballroom faces its first key test on Tuesday as a federal judge in Washington weighs a request from historic preservationists to immediately put a halt to construction.
Construction work continues where the East Wing once stood at the White House, December 8, 2025 in Washington.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The mid-afternoon hearing in U.S. District Court will feature an attorney for the National Trust for Historic Preservation urging the judge to grant a temporary restraining order that would force the administration to stop work on the ballroom.
The National Trust’s complaint, filed last week, accuses President Donald Trump and senior administration officials of flouting federal laws aimed at ensuring expert review, public comment and congressional approval before any structure is built on federal land in Washington, D.C.
“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 insists.
But attorneys for the Justice Department argue that as the occupant of an executive mansion that has seen several additions, renovations and alterations over the past two centuries, the president has the legal authority to demolish the former East Wing and add a ballroom without seeking congressional or executive branch approval.
The administration’s filing to the court late Monday had Justice Department lawyers vowing that the White House would “solicit input” from the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts “before above-grade construction occurs.” That work, the filing says, is not expected to start until April.
The ballroom, the administration’s filing says, is just the latest in a “long line of major presidential renovations of the White House,” starting with the addition of the South Portico by President James Monroe and continuing through the installation of the press briefing room during Richard Nixon’s presidency.
In arguing for an immediate stop to the ongoing build, the National Trust cites the potential for health and environmental hazards that might have resulted from the East Wing’s demolition in October, noting that “many buildings of similar age” were constructed with asbestos and lead paint in the early 20th century.
The preservation group points to reports that debris from the former East Wing has been dumped at East Potomac Park, which hosts a golf course on a man-made island in the Potomac River near D.C.’s Southwest Waterfront, and “perhaps elsewhere, with no apparent treatment or regard for its potential hazards.”
But the administration’s response calls that speculative and a “bald claim.”
The administration submitted a sworn declaration from John Stanwich, the National Park Service’s White House liaison, who said the project’s general contractor undertook “abatement activities related to certain hazardous materials within the [p]roject area … during the months of September and October 2025.”
The government’s Monday night filing also includes a 17-page “environmental assessment” from the National Park Service, dated in late August, determining that the ballroom project would have “no significant impact” on the surrounding White House grounds, and forecasting it would be completed in the summer of 2028.
An excavator works to clear rubble after the East Wing of the White House was demolished, October 23, 2025 in Washington.
Eric Lee/Getty Images
Separately, the Justice Department is seeking court approval to submit a classified document from the U.S. Secret Service regarding the potential national security implications of a halt to the ballroom project. In a publicly available filing, Matthew Quinn, the service’s deputy director, claimed that “any pause in construction, even temporarily, would … hamper the Secret Service’s ability to meet its statutory obligation and protective mission.”
The preservationists’ suit stresses the need for public comment ahead of construction, claiming that the latest ballroom rendering released by the White House in October “suggested a haphazard design process,” with a set of stairs that led to “no apparent landing” and two windows with exterior trim that “appeared to collide.”
Senior Trump aides have maligned the National Trust for airing concerns about the project, with the White House communications director referring to it in October as an outfit run by “a bunch of loser Democrats and liberal donors who are playing political games.”
The National Park Service, the broader Department of the Interior and the General Services Administration are named in the lawsuit, as well as Trump.
Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, has been assigned the case. The hearing on the request for a temporary restraining order is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Tuesday.
