President Donald Trump speaks with reporters during a tour of ballroom construction at the White House, where the East Wing once stood, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
One day after Republicans suffered losses across the country, President Donald Trump described the ballroom replacing the White House East Wing as a “special structure.” Now, the Justice Department is returning to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to end the “shadow of judicial superintendence” over the project, which is “roughly 70% complete,” and resolve the case in Trump’s favor without full proceedings.
U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer characterized the “renovation” as a “vital national-security effort taking place on the White House grounds with the President’s personal involvement.” In a filing, he argued that it is “well past time to dispel the injunctive specter hanging over these critical efforts.”
“At a minimum, plenary review is warranted, as the Court’s grant of a stay reflects,” the Justice Department said in a petition for a writ of certiorari filed Thursday and docketed Friday, according to the court’s website.
On the final day of August, the justices granted the government’s request to pause a lower-court injunction in a 5-4 decision. The ruling rejected the “aesthetic injury” claims brought by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and architectural historian Alison Hoagland, allowing construction to proceed.
The conservative majority stressed that it was not deciding “the legality of the government’s East Wing project.” Instead, the justices said the government was “likely to prevail in showing that the Trust lacks Article III standing to challenge the project in federal court and that the remaining stay factors favor relief.”
Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented. Roberts wrote that Hoagland is “not just any person,” the White House is “not just any building,” and the construction was “likely unlawful.”
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The ballroom project is now back before the Supreme Court, but the Justice Department says “full-blown merits review serves little purpose.”
“Instead, summary disposition in light of the Court’s stay decision is the most appropriate course,” the government argued. “That is the case here, especially given the extraordinary intrusions posed by the injunction below.”
“To be sure,” the petition continued, “the Court’s decision on the government’s stay application was itself a preliminary decision. But while preliminary, the decision was thoroughly reasoned after extensive briefing.”
The filing added that “it is appropriate for a per curiam to stand on its own” in such circumstances, particularly when “there are particularly compelling reasons for a speedy disposition in light of the lopsided interests at stake.”
The National Trust for Historic Preservation is scheduled to respond by Dec. 7, according to the docket.
The post “‘Plenary review is warranted’: DOJ returns to SCOTUS to ‘dispel’ the ‘injunctive specter’ over Trump’s ballroom” first appeared on Law & Crime.