Plaintiff Rejects DOJ Demand to Drop Lawsuit Challenging Trump's White House Ballroom Project

The plaintiff in the lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump's $400 million White House ballroom project on Monday rejected a demand by the Department of Justice to drop that legal challenge in the wake of a shooting incident at the White House Correspondents' Dinner that Trump was evacuated from.

"Your assertion that this lawsuit puts the President's life at 'grave risk' is incorrect and irresponsible," wrote Gregory Craig, a lawyer for the plaintiff, The National Trust for Historic Preservation, to DOJ Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate. "Simply put, this case does not jeopardize the President's safety in any way," Craig wrote in the new letter, which he provided to CNBC. "And nothing prevents you from asking Congress at any time for the necessary authorization required by the Constitution and federal law," the attorney wrote.

"What Saturday's awful event does not change is that the Constitution and multiple federal statutes require Congress to authorize construction of a ballroom on White House grounds, and that Congress has not done so.

Craig's response came after two days of renewed calls by Trump, Republican lawmakers, and supporters of the president for the suit to be rejected by a federal court, and for the way to be cleared for the ballroom to be built. Trump and others say the proposed 90,000-square-foot ballroom would be much more secure than the Washington Hilton Hotel, where Saturday's shooting occurred, and than other venues outside the White House grounds.

Shumate, in his letter to Craig on Sunday, said the trust's lawsuit "puts the lives of the President, his family, and his staff at great risk." "I hope that yesterday's narrow miss will help you finally realize the folly of a lawsuit that literally serves no purpose except to stop President Trump no matter the cost," wrote Shumate. "Enough is enough," Shumate wrote. "Your client should voluntarily dismiss this frivolous lawsuit today in light of last night's assassination attempt on President Trump."

The shooting incident at the WHCD came nine days after a federal judge issued an order blocking construction of the ballroom on the grounds that Trump had not obtained approval from Congress for it. "National security is not a blank check to proceed with otherwise unlawful activity," U.S. District Judge Richard Leon wrote in his order enjoining the ballroom from being built as a lawsuit plays out.

The DOJ appealed that ruling, and the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit lifted Leon's injunction, but said it would expedite a review of the DOJ's challenge.

Trump, at a press conference within hours of the arrest Saturday of alleged gunman Cole Tomas Allen, cited the incident to make the case for his long-sought-after ballroom. "A ballroom is imperative for a lot of reasons," Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., told Fox News in an interview Monday, one of several segments in which the conservative network maintained a drumbeat of voices calling for that structure to be built.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., in a separate Fox interview, accused Democratic leaders in Congress of inciting violence with their rhetoric against Trump, and said he was "grateful" that Sen. John Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat, had endorsed the effort to build the ballroom for security reasons. "He's right, the ballroom will be a solution for this, because it will be on the most secure compound in the world, it won't have hotel rooms above it, and it'll have 7-inch thick glass ... on the windows," he said. "So it'll be a very safe environment to do events like this." "We have needed a place like that, and the president keeps pointing it out."

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., in his own Fox interview, called opposition to the ballroom an example of "Trump Derangement Syndrome." In addition to media appearances, Republican lawmakers and other Trump supporters used social media to promote calls for the ballroom to be built. Those social media posts, in turn, were met with replies from some people who said, without evidence, that the WHCD shooting incident was staged to create pressure for the ballroom to be built. Other critics of calls for the ballroom noted that presidents routinely visit venues outside the White House.