Will the Battle Over the White House Ballroom go to the Supreme Court for "Relief"?

The battle over the ballroom is heating up and the Trump administration is threatening to go to the Supreme Court to get their way.

On July 31, 2025, a White House statement announced the administration’s intent to construct a 90,000-square-foot ballroom, saying: “The site of the new ballroom will be where the small, heavily changed, and reconstructed East Wing currently sits.” The statement also included a quote from White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles: “The President and the Trump White House are fully committed to working with the appropriate organizations to preserving the special history of the White House while building a beautiful ballroom that can be enjoyed by future Administrations and generations of Americans to come.” That same day the president said the ballroom "won't interfere with the current building. … It will be near it but not touching it.”

On October 20, 2025, the Trump administration suddenly and quickly began bulldozing the East Wing. Critics cried foul saying the requisite notifications and approvals hadn’t been secured.

On December 12, 2025, the National Trust for Historic Preservation filed suit in part because “Congress has not yet authorized construction of the building as it is required to do when construction is proposed in any federal park in the District of Columbia (the White House sits in The White House and President’s Park).” They also noted: “plans have not yet been filed with the National Capital Planning Commission as required by the National Capital Planning Act.”

The administration quickly remedied the latter and secured some approvals from the design-related agencies with jurisdiction—the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) on February 19, 2026, and the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) on April 2—largely because most of the decision-makers were presidential appointees who have none of the normally required qualifications (and in the face of massive public opposition—the NCPC received more than 30,000 comments of which more than 97 percent opposed the project). In an article for Dezeen—"The proposed White House ballroom is wholly incompatible with the site"—The Cultural Landscape Foundation’s Founding President & CEO, Charles A. Birnbaum, wrote: “laws and guidelines regarding the [White House] grounds are being flouted and ignored, and regulatory agencies are being stacked with loyalists who have demonstrated little interest, if any, in understanding the significance of the cherished and beloved landmark they're affecting.”

There was also the speed of the approvals.

Details about the ballroom had only been presented for the first time to the respective commissions in January. Typically reviews before the CFA and NCPC take much longer; the reviews for the new White House fence took nine months. Yet within three months both commissions had signed off. As the New York Times noted: “The hurried reviews, with construction cranes already swiveling above the White House grounds, are an abrupt departure from how new monuments, museums and even modest renovations have been designed and refined in the capital for decades.” TCLF’s Birnbaum told CNN White House reporter Betsy Klein: “This is a wholesale removal of contributing historic buildings and landscape features that will alter this resource forever.”

On March 31 the administration hit a major roadblock when Judge Richard Leon issued a preliminary injunction preventing further construction (he stayed the decision for fourteen days). Judge Leon wrote: “The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!” He added: “no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have.”

Judge Leon said it was up to the U.S. Congress to approve the project. However, based on reports in Politico and The Washington Post, there doesn’t seem to be any appetite on the part of congressional republicans to take up the matter.

Meanwhile, with the clock ticking before the stay on Judge Leon’s preliminary injunction expires on April 9, the administration filed a motion with the D.C. Court of Appeals that concluded: “At minimum, the Court should extend the district court’s stay for an additional 14 days to allow the Solicitor General to seek relief in the Supreme Court.” [emphasis added].

While it was generally expected that the administration would appeal the case to the Supreme Court, this appears to be the first time the threat was explicitly made in a court filing. As of this writing, no hearing before the Court of Appeals has been scheduled; however, on Saturday, April 11, Judge Leon’s stay was extended until Friday, April 17. Will there be an appeal to the Supreme Court by then?