{"id":5936,"date":"2026-01-24T13:40:03","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T13:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/24\/federal-judge-questions-trump-authority-on-white-house-ballroom-project\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T13:40:03","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T13:40:03","slug":"federal-judge-questions-trump-authority-on-white-house-ballroom-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/24\/federal-judge-questions-trump-authority-on-white-house-ballroom-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal judge questions Trump authority on White House ballroom project"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"speakable\">As President Donald Trump aims to build a ballroom at the White House, federal Judge Richard Leon on Thursday reportedly asked Justice Department lawyers to point to what authority allows the president to engage in a construction project at the White House.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">&#8216;Where do you see the authority for the president to tear down the East Wing and build something in its place?&#8217; the judge asked, according to The Washington Post.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>While the outlet reported that Leon said he could issue a decision next month, NBC News reported that the judge promised that he would issue a decision in February.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Attorney Thad Heuer, who represents the National Trust for Historic Preservation, contended that the president lacks the constitutional power to rip down the East Wing and build a ballroom, according to NBC News, which quoted Heuer as saying, &#8216;He&#8217;s not the owner.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>The outlet reported that the judge seemed to be leaning in the direction of pausing the project.<\/p>\n<p>Fox News Digital reached out to the White House on Friday.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-media fn-video\">\n<div class=\"video-container\">\n<div data-video-tags=\"primary_politics,politics|person|donald_trump,on_air,personality|laura_ingraham,on_air|the_ingraham_angle\" data-video-title=\"President Donald Trump: We\"> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>&#8216;The president didn\u2019t want $400 million in taxpayer money to be used for this,&#8217; Justice Department attorney Yaakov Roth said, according to NBC News.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;He wanted to use donations,&#8217; Roth noted.<\/p>\n<p>The project began last year at the behest of Trump, but he has asserted that it is being funded by private donations, not taxpayer dollars.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"video-container\">\n<div data-video-tags=\"primary_us,on_air,on_air|jesse_watters_primetime,personality|jesse_watters,us,vod_vertical\" data-video-title=\"Watters reveals what Trump REALLY said about his new ballroom\" data-video-id=\"6386788689112\" data-video-domain=\"foxnews\" data-video-type=\"CLIP\" data-widget-type=\"embed\" class=\"m video-player\" style=\"width: 100%;height: 100%\"> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>&#8216;I am honored to be the first President to finally get this much-needed project underway \u2014 with zero cost to the American Taxpayer!&#8217; Trump declared in an October Truth Social post. &#8216;The White House Ballroom is being privately funded by many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly. This Ballroom will be happily used for Generations to come!&#8217;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<div>This post appeared first on FOX NEWS<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As President Donald Trump aims to build a ballroom at the White House, federal Judge Richard Leon on Thursday reportedly asked Justice Department lawyers to point to what authority allows the president to engage in a construction project at the White House. &#8216;Where do you see the authority for the president to tear down the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5937,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}