American justice, dismayed by the arguments of Trump's team. “If the Government decides to tear down the Statue of Liberty, can no one stop it?”
In a show of legal force that borders on the absurd and tests the limits of the US Constitution, lawyers for the Department of Justice (DOJ) have hinted that courts do not have the power to block President Donald Trump's real estate projects, even when they violate the law. The central argument? The project is already too advanced, and national security takes precedence over historical heritage.
Donald Trump presents what the future ballroom at the White House will look like/PHOTO:AFP
The scene unfolded Friday, June 5, before a three-judge panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals, where the Trump administration is trying to defend the legality of building a mega-ballroom at the White House.
The president's soul project has already been started in force, but at a huge historical cost: the complete demolition of the famous East Wing.
When an illegality becomes too big to stop
Two of the panel's three judges expressed deep skepticism about the Justice Department's line of defense that the courts are powerless over an ongoing project. “When did this project become a fait accompli?” asked a visibly irritated Judge Patricia Millett.
“If we're dealing with absolute lawlessness on the part of the government…does that mean it can't be stopped?”
“Going on that theory, I think so, yes“, responded Yaakov Roth, a lawyer for the Department of Justice, calmly. To highlight the danger of this “move fast and tear it all down” view, Judge Millett (appointed during the Obama administration) pushed the script to the extreme:“If the government decides, at a very rapid pace, to bulldoze the Statue of Liberty — the first symbol our forefathers saw when they arrived in this country — but it's moving too fast for anyone to intervene, is there nothing that can be done?” “I think that's the right answer, yes”the DOJ representative reconfirmed.
The legal battle is one of attrition. In March, a federal judge had ordered a halt to work, but the D.C. Court of Appeals quickly stayed that decision, allowing the construction site to continue while the lawsuit is pending.
Donald Trump has never hidden his aesthetic and architectural ambitions for Washington, making this ballroom a personal priority. To secure its project, the administration invoked an argument that could not be beaten in the US: the space will not be just an event hall, but a veritable national security bastion for the protection of the president.
While Judge Bradley Garcia (a Biden appointee) shared her colleague's skepticism, Judge Neomi Rao (a Trump appointee) questioned the very legitimacy of the plaintiff to sue the executive.
Trump's ironies on social media and the reality on the record
As usual, the American president chose to take the dispute into the public space as well, ridiculing the court action initiated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
In a post on social media, the president claimed that the lawsuit was filed by “a woman walking her dog” who would not have the legal right to challenge the project.
In reality, the applicant organization based its action on the status of an interested person of Alison Hoagland, a historian and retired university professor, involved over the years in numerous heritage conservation projects.
The documents submitted to the file do not mention the existence of any dog.
