Court Battles

White House ballroom construction can continue, federal appeals court says

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by Ryan Mancini - 04/11/26 6:24 PM ET

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by Ryan Mancini - 04/11/26 6:24 PM ET

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A U.S. Court of Appeals on Saturday said that construction of the White House ballroom can carry on temporarily after a judge halted construction late last month.

A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled 2-1 that the preliminary injunction be put on pause until April 17, allowing for construction to continue. The panel asked U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, appointed by former President George W. Bush, to clarify the order in an appeal.

The panel addressed the Trump administration’s appeal arguing that leaving the ballroom unfinished would “imperil” Trump and others who live and work in the White House.

“We cannot fairly determine, on this hurried record, whether and to what extent the district court’s ‘necessary for safety and security’ exception addresses Defendants’ claims of irreparable harm, insofar as it may accommodate the Defendants’ asserted safety and security need for the ballroom itself or other temporary measures to secure the safety and security of the White House, the President, staff, and visitors while this appeal proceeds,” the panel wrote in its ruling.

“We thus remand these cases to the district court with instructions to promptly address the pending motion to clarify how the injunction and its exception will ensure safety and security pending litigation,” the ruling reads.

Judge Neomi Rao dissented from the panel’s ruling. Rao pushed back against the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s challenge to the administration’s appeal for the $400 million project, saying that it lacked standing and said President Trump has the authority to build the ballroom.

The administration has contended that the ballroom’s “entire design cohesively advances critical national security objectives” and that its construction needed to be completed to allow for it to be fortified against attacks and exposure to the elements.

The preservationists’ lawyers wrote that Leon’s injunction did not prevent construction “on the underground bunker their motion exhaustively describes; indeed, the Trust has never objected to that.” They argued that the ballroom’s construction first requires approval from Congress.

Rao, a Trump appointee, wrote that the government had presented “credible evidence of ongoing security vulnerabilities at the White House that would be prolonged by halting construction.”

Construction on the ballroom received approval from the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) following Leon’s injunction. Commission members cited presidential history, saying that the construction is in line with past White House projects under past administrations.

Phil Mendelson, chair of the Council of the District of Columbia, cast the only “no” vote over the expected size of the ballroom. He also suggested that the proposal for the ballroom had changed since it was previously introduced to the board, and that if more changes to the White House are proposed, they should be reviewed altogether and not “piecemeal.”

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