New court filing nails Trump’s shifting 'bunker' story

The non-profit group that sued President Donald Trump for bulldozing the East Wing of the White House and starting his own nearly-$1 billion project has filed its first response to the appeal filed with the Supreme Court.

Courthouse News reporter Kelsey Reichmann flagged the filing on Tuesday, showing that the group, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, went straight to the heart of Trump's argument that the project is too far gone to stop.

"Petitioners, however, insist they will keep building — no matter what anyone says," the filing says.

They quoted the Trump argument saying, “When asked ‘[w]hen … it bec[a]me impossible for courts to stop this project,’ the Defendants stated point-blank: ‘[I]t would have been improper to enjoin it even on day one.’”

They also cited the back-and-forth between the judge and the Trump lawyers. In that instance, the judge asked, "So if this were complete lawlessness by the [g]overnment … , [it] couldn’t be stopped?" The government answered, "On these theories, I think that’s right."

"More astonishing is Petitioners’ declaration that they are on the brink of a fait accompli. They tell this Court that because the ballroom is being built with the type of concrete used 'in nuclear power plants,' it will soon be 'virtually impossible to deconstruct,'" the filing continues.

"Absent an injunction, Petitioners candidly contend that if the ballroom were 'ordered to be taken down, or even altered, by the court, there would be no way to do so,'" the filing states, quoting Trump lawyers. "That is the essence of irreparable harm."

The filing goes on to argue against allowing the Trump administration to finish the ballroom while the courts are still deciding whether it was legal to start with. Congress, it says, not Trump, decides whether major construction can occur on federal property, especially in a federal park in Washington D.C. It maintains that Congress never specifically authorized this ballroom.

The Trust alleges that the administration demolished the East Wing and began the project without completing any of the legally-required public, environmental, historic-preservation and planning reviews. They also allege that the Trump administration repeatedly changed its story about its legal authority and the project’s connection to a proposed underground security facility.

Initially, according to the filing, officials claimed it was a ballroom and bunker — two separate projects. It's the main reason that the lower-court judge put a stop to the ballroom but not to the new Trump bunker. Later, the White House claimed that the ballroom was necessary for national security because the structure would somehow protect the bunker. Now the argument has become that it's a "military complex" and that the White House has full jurisdiction over military projects.

Contrary to the White House's claim, the Trust continued, pausing construction would not endanger the president or national security because the injunction permits work on underground security facilities to continue. It also allows all measures needed to protect the White House, the president and his staff. The harms that the White House claims are an "emergency" and necessitate the Supreme Court weigh in immediately mostly have to do with "inconvenience" and "delay," the filing says.

This case doesn't involve the Supreme Court weighing in on the ballroom itself. This matter is only about the injunction to pause the building while it works its way through the courts. The Trust explained that it is concerned that the Trump administration will build so quickly that, by the time judges rule, the structure will be too expensive or impractical to undo. That is why it wants construction paused now, rather than after the case is fully resolved.

"'[O]wned by the American people,' the White House is 'more than the President’s residence," the Trust says, "it is integral to the 'national discourse about what it means to be American.'"