In Reply to: Judges rule Trump has to stop ballroom posted by russsmith on August 07, 2026 at 08:41:35
The 2 judges who opposed it said there's a 2 week pause in the order to give Trump time to go to SCOTUS and ask for an emergency ruling. During that time underground construction can continue for security required reasons but aboveground has to stop.
Also in the ruling it cites that Trumps own lawyers in the lawsuit said because it's privately funded it doesn't need Congressional approval but Trump is open asking for taxpayer money as part of the deal so it's NOT really privately funding. So by their own filing, it's not legal because we are paying for part of it.
No president in history has ever done anything like this without Congressional approval.
The dissenting judge, a Trump appointee, said Trump had "seized" construction authority and thus had the right to do it, that it's overreach by the other judges. The party that sued does not have authority to intervene, it's literally their job to review government construction projects.
The judges also ruled the failure by Trump to provide detailed and accurate plans of what he's building make it impossible to assume the costs won't keep going up and Congrress has to authorize spending and needs plans to do so.