The Chief Justice of the United States wrote last night that the president’s ballroom is “likely unlawful.” Five of his colleagues read those words, looked the other way, and effectively allowed the president to continue hammering at the crime scene.
That’s pretty much the whole story of Monday’s 5-4 Supreme Court decision, which deserves to be remembered as one of the most cowardly acts in the modern history of the Supreme Court. In an unsigned order, the five-justice majority lifted the lower courts’ pause on Trump’s East Wing project without having to take a position on the legality of the president building an unauthorized, billion-dollar ballroom. Instead, they took the easy way out, ruling that the National Trust for Historic Preservation and its board member, Alison Hoagland, didn’t have the standing to sue.
Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson, was not willing to play along, and his dissent says what the majority would not: “The President ordered the demolition of the East Wing of the White House to make way for a new, privately funded state ballroom in its place. Construction of the ballroom has proceeded apace for the better part of a year. That construction is likely unlawful.”
The chief justice observed that Congress “has not passed any law resembling ‘express authority’” for the project, and the routine appropriation “of a couple million dollars for ordinary Executive Residence maintenance and repairs likely does not authorize the President to use hundreds of millions of dollars” to build a 90,000-square-foot palace where a historic wing once stood.
Then he let it rip: “The White House is not just any building, and — when it comes to historic preservation — Hoagland is not just any person. 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. Today’s decision is no victory for the separation of powers.”
It’s extraordinary that the top judge in America assessed that a crime was in progress, but his colleagues looked the other way so as not to anger the criminal.
Just imagine a man kicking down the door of a clubhouse that belongs to the whole neighborhood. Six cops arrive. The sergeant takes one look and says, “That’s illegal! Stop that man!” The other five look down at their feet and mumble about how the person who called 911 didn’t own the building or live in the neighborhood. So they turn back to their cars, holster their flashlights, and drive off. The break-in continues. That’s basically Monday’s ruling.
This dissent is quite something coming from John Roberts. He’s among the most institutionally cautious men in Washington, a chief justice who’s spent two decades avoiding confrontation, sometimes painfully so. When Roberts says the Court just permitted a violation of Congressional authority, he’s describing his own colleagues as accomplices.
In response, the conservative majority strained themselves to say they weren’t making a judgment about whether the construction was legal, but everyone else can see this is a cop-out. If they’d wanted to let the judicial system reach an ultimate ruling on the legality of the ballroom, they would’ve let the case proceed on the merits in the lower courts, where, as the National Trust noted, every judge who reviewed the project had found it “patently unlawful.” Judge Richard Leon, a Bush appointee, ruled against Trump in March. The D.C. Circuit affirmed, rejecting the administration’s “bold assertion that the Executive can act with utter lawlessness, destroying treasured national landmarks and harming the interests of individuals, and that no court can stop it.” An earlier panel reminded the president that he is a “temporary tenant, not the owner” of the White House.
What’s worse, the Supreme Court is now opening the door to fresh abuses of power on federal property all across America. By concluding that not even the National Trust for Historic Preservation has standing to sue, they’re signaling to Trump that there’s likely no one who can stop him from doing whatever he wants with federal property. Indeed, Trump’s Justice Department argued outright that nothing could be done if the president tore down the Statue of Liberty. Last night, five justices effectively agreed.
In effect, the Court has invented a brand new category of presidential lawbreaking. Who’s to say Trump won’t next seek to behead the statue at the Lincoln Memorial and put his stone head atop it? Or carve his face into Mount Rushmore? Or give away chunks of our national parks to real estate developers? Oh wait, he’s already doing that, surely buoyed by the belief that the high court won’t stop him.
Trump understands the get-out-of-jail-free card he’s been given. Within hours, he was crowing that the “magnificent Ballroom and Military Complex” will be finished by summer 2028 “at no cost to the American Taxpayer.” That, too, is false. The Washington Post has documented how nearly a billion dollars — most of it taxpayer money — was secretly cobbled together by the White House for the project, including hundreds of millions raided from the Secret Service’s budget.
By the way, I used to oversee the Secret Service’s budget on Capitol Hill and then from DHS headquarters. The White House can shift money between accounts only for purposes Congress already approved, and Congress did not appropriate Secret Service funds so Trump could build a ballroom. Nothing about this cash swap is ordinary or above-board. It’s the federal budget equivalent of money laundering.
Roberts closed his dissent by quoting Winston Churchill: “We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.” Then he added a line that should be carved over the Court’s own marble facade: “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.”
History won’t forget the five cowards who let Trump go forward with something that was “likely unlawful.” They turned their backs on a crime scene because they were too scared of the criminal. But a few years from now, we’re going to make sure they remember. I’ll be the first to invite them to a ceremony on the White House lawn where, one day, Trump’s illegal ballroom will eventually be demolished.
Your friend, in defiance,
DEFIANCE DAILY
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