A man tried to assassinate the President of the United States at the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner in April. Trump\u2019s response was to build a more secure venue on White House grounds \u2014 a $400 million, 22,000-square-foot ballroom that eliminates the need to hold major events at external venues where security gaps are harder to control.<\/p>\n
Two judges just told him he can\u2019t.<\/p>\n
The D.C. Circuit Court ruled 2-1 that the Trump administration likely cannot demolish the East Wing or proceed with above-ground construction on the new White House Ballroom without congressional authorization. The two judges in the majority \u2014 Patricia Millett, an Obama appointee, and Brad Garcia, a Biden appointee \u2014 apparently believe that the executive branch needs legislative permission to renovate the president\u2019s own residence and working facility.<\/p>\n
Judge Neomi Rao, the lone dissenter and the only Trump appointee on the panel, disagreed \u2014 and her dissent goes to the heart of why this ruling is constitutionally dubious. The executive branch has inherent authority over the White House compound. The president lives and works there. The security infrastructure of the presidency is an executive responsibility. Requiring congressional authorization for White House construction and renovation decisions turns a fundamental executive prerogative into a congressional veto over the president\u2019s ability to run his own house. And never mind that many previous presidents have renovated parts of the White House without fussy political hacks disguised as judges interferring.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also a small logistical problem with the majority\u2019s ruling that the article notes almost in passing: the demolition of the East Wing has already happened. The construction is already underway. The court is issuing an order to stop something that is partially built \u2014 raising the question of what exactly it expects the administration to do at this point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A man tried to assassinate the President of the United States at the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner in April. Trump\u2019s response was to build a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-viral-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/viralscontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/viralscontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/viralscontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/viralscontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/viralscontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18598"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/viralscontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18600,"href":"https:\/\/viralscontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18598\/revisions\/18600"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/viralscontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/viralscontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/viralscontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/viralscontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}