Donald Trump is going to get his gilded White House ballroom thanks to the Supreme Court, but not with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr’s blessing.
The “construction is likely unlawful,” the Chief Justice wrote today in a dissent to SCOTUS’ 5-4 decision in favor of the $600 million and climbing costing venue. “The White House is not just any building …in failing to appreciate as much, the Court misconceives the plaintiff ’s injury, allowing the Executive’s likely infringement of the Legislature’s power of the purse and authority to regulate federal property in the District of Columbia to continue,” lifelong Republican Roberts added, voting with the court liberals Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
“Today’s decision is no victory for the separation of powers,” Roberts stated as his usual ideological colleagues rejected assertions by National Trust for Historic Preservation to stop the pricey corporate donor fueled project. Worth noting, the five justices who gave the thumbs up to the ballroom (three of whom were appointed by Trump) centered on the Historic Trust’s legal right to stop the construction, not whether or not it’s lawful.
In words likely intended to sting big Churchill fan Trump, Chief Justice Roberts concludes his pointed dissent by quoting the wartime UK PM: “Winston Churchill once remarked that ‘[w]e shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.’ All the more reason to ensure that those responsible follow the rules in deciding what to tear down and what to build up at the People’s House.
Still, that the rebuke by Roberts didn’t even warrant a mention by Trump in his reaction Monday to the ruling.
“I am pleased to report that the United States Supreme Court has just ruled in favor of the Ballroom/Military Complex being built without any further contingency, doubt, or threat,” Trump posted online this afternoon after the unsigned order by SCOTUS’ conservative majority was made public. “We are living in the Golden Age of America, and this Building will be one of the Greatest ever constructed in Washington, D.C.”
On the last day of a hot August, with closing arguments taking place in the Tupac Shakur murder trial and the Lindsay Clancy jury still in deliberations, cable news and other media outlets were all over the Supreme Court ruling, touting it as big win for Trump.
In a historical twist in the multi-court up and down status of the former Apprentice host’s much desired ballroom, it was Chief Justice Roberts on August 21 who granted a stay on a preliminary injunction on the ballroom issued by a district court judge back in the spring. Having very infrequently broken with Trump before today, legacy aware Roberts said at the time the now moot stay would hold “pending further order of the undersigned or of the court,” per the document.
Expected to hold over 1,000 guests and also serve as an underground secure command center and bunker for the Commander-in-Chief, the Trump ballroom began in earnest last October with the destruction of the East Wing of White House. Chief Justice Roberts probably won’t be among the first to get an invite when the ballroom is completed — might not make it to the Kennedy Center either, if that’s still standing.
Donald Trump & Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr
Win McNamee/Getty Images
