On October 20, 2025 President Trump announced on social media that “ground had been broken on the White House grounds to build the new, big, beautiful White House Ballroom.” On October 21, 2025, media outlets confirmed that heavy machinery was demolishing the East Wing. By October 23, 2025, the East Wing had been demolished in its entirety. After the demolition of the East Wing, the National Trust-a nonprofit with “thousands of members” who “have a substantial interest in preserving historic and cultural resources in Washington, D.C. filed a lawsuit in the Federal Court of the District of Columbia, to stop Trumps construction project on the grounds that it wasn’t done with Congressional approval.

Judge Richard J. Leon was born in South Natick, MA, the son of a Portuguese father and an Irish mother. Leon graduated from the College of the Holy Cross, where he played lacrosse, his team had a dismal 6-22 record. Leon was a classmate of Justice Clarence Thomas. Leon graduated from Suffolk Law School and went on to work in various prestigious positions in the government and academia. He was appointed to the Federal bench by George “Dubya” Bush.

Judge Leon ruled that Trump had no right to demolish the East Wing and construct a $400 million ballroom. Leon wrote in his opinion, which included many exclamation points, which is very unusual, the following: “Section 105(d)(l) plainly authorizes the President to conduct ordinary maintenance and upkeep of the White House, and nothing more! Reading the text as an ordinary reader of English would, the list of authorized actions-which includes words like “care, maintenance, repair” and “air-conditioning, heating, and lighting”-bring to mind things like replacing the lightbulbs, fixing broken furniture, and changing the wallpaper, not wholesale demolition of entire buildings and construction of new ones.”

Department of Justice attorney Yaacov M. Roth argued that demolishing the entire White House would violate the law while Trump’s plan was just a minor renovation: “Roth suggested at oral argument that bulldozing the entire White House and building something completely different in its place would exceed the scope of ‘alteration and improvement,’ as opposed to Trump’s planned $400 million ‘alteration.’ But if demolishing one wing of the White House and building a new structure is permissible, it is difficult to understand how demolishing the rest of the complex would cross the line… Defendants have never engaged in a construction project of this size and scale using donated funds. This lack of historical precedent, coupled with the breadth of authority that Defendants now claim, is a ‘telling indication’ that the ballroom extends beyond Defendants’ legitimate reach.”

Roth argued that any delay in construction would “imperil national security and expose the White House to damage.” Judge Leon’s response: “Grasping for straws, Defendants call the construction site a coordinated and managed safety hazard that has disrupted existing security procedures. According to Defendants, any construction delay will undermine national security. Please! While I take seriously the Government’s concerns regarding the safety and security of the White House grounds and the President himself, the existence of a “large hole” beside the White House is, of course, a problem of the President’s own making! Bald assertions of”national security” cannot excuse the Government’s failure to follow the law and then insulate those failures from judicial review.”

Trump chose well known architect Shalom Baranes, a Jewish refugee from Libya, who graduated from the Yale School of Architecture, to design and construct the addition to the White House. Other architects have been highly critical of Shalom agreeing to take on Trump’s project. Paul Goldberger, an architecture critic, who knew Shalom from Yale, called the ballroom “a huge, dumb box” that was “nominally designed” by Shalom “but for all intents and purposes designed by Mr. Trump.” He said Shalom is well suited to the task because of his abilities with developers and is able to “produce work of whatever type in whatever style his clients want.’’

Shalom’s parents were Sephardi Jews who fled Libya in 1948 at the time Israel declared independence. They fled to Rome and then planned to move to Israel. Shalom’s father was a famous tailor of men’s suits in Tripoli. While he was in Rome he looked into setting up a suit shop in Israel, but when he looked at newspaper photographs from Israel all he saw were men dressed in cotton work shirts and khaki shorts. He told his family, “there isn’t a single person in Israel wearing a suit.” That’s when he decided to move to the land where the streets are paved with gold, America! The rest is history. He never changed his name, unlike Ralph Lipshitz, who changed his name to Ralph Lauren.

If you have a tip, story idea, suggested correction, or would like help brainstorming a legal issue you are dealing with, you can reach me at: larrylokshen@gmail.com.

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