"This is the people's house": US court halts Donald Trump's mega-project at the White House

The Federal Court of Appeals in Washington rejected the appeal of the Donald Trump administration and ordered a halt to the project to build a new ballroom at the White House, the cost of which is estimated at approximately $400 million. This is reported by the Reuters agency.

In a ruling issued by a 2-1 majority, the court determined that the president is not the owner of the house but a "temporary tenant," and therefore has no constitutional authority to make such drastic structural changes to the complex without receiving approval and funding from the US Congress. The order reaffirmed a temporary injunction obtained by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which approached the court after the administration demolished the East Wing and began building a ballroom with an area of about 8,360 square meters without requesting approval from Congress.

According to the majority judges' decision:

"The decision to build a huge ballroom lies with Congress and is not the business of the executive branch. Congress did not grant the executive branch unlimited authority to redesign, alter, and rebuild the White House in a dramatic way — the people's house — to suit the desires of a particular president."

The Court of Appeals froze its ruling for 14 days to allow the Donald Trump administration to appeal to the US Supreme Court. The president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Brent Leggs, stated that the ruling is a "great day for our country and for the right of the American people to express their opinion on the historic places dear to their hearts, including the White House."

Donald Trump filed the appeal after US District Court Judge Richard Leon, an appointee of former Republican President George Bush, blocked the above-ground construction work twice, but allowed the underground work to continue. The ballroom project, which the administration claims is essential for large official events as well as for security reasons, is the most ambitious of several of Donald Trump's plans to redesign the landscape of government buildings and national monuments in downtown Washington.

Donald Trump previously defended the project and its price, which doubled compared to initial estimates. In a post he published on his social network, Truth Social, in May, he wrote that the cost jumped because "the hall is about double the size, and of much higher quality than the original proposal" and promised that "it will be magnificent, safe, and protected."