Justice Department says Trump has the right to bulldoze the Statue of Liberty and no one has the power to stop him

No limits

Sarah K. Burris, Alternet

Trump's Statue of Fascism

The Justice Department was in court on Friday fighting for President Donald Trump's bulldozing of the White House East Wing for his ballroom.

The oral arguments Friday deal with who has the right to sue over the destruction of the White House. Matthew Russell Lee, who runs "Inner City Press," was live-posting the back and forth. Among the first things he quoted the DOJ as saying was, "There is an aspect of self-inflicted harm here."

But all arguments about the size, appeal or funding of the ballroom don't matter because the DOJ claims the case doesn't have standing to begin with.

Trump's new plans for the White House

"In an appeals court fight over the White House ballroom, DOJ says the federal government could quickly bulldoze the Statue of Liberty, and no one would have standing to sue over the changes once the demolition is done," wrote Politico legal reporter Kyle Cheney on X.

The exchange came from Judge Patricia Millett, who questioned, "If the government decides very quickly to bulldoze the Statue of Liberty, the people whose ancestors — that was the first thing they saw coming to this country, but the government moved too fast — nothing can be done?"

The DOJ agreed.

During the government shutdown, Americans watched in horror as large machinery tore into the historic building. The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued the Trump administration in an effort to block construction of a 90,000-square-foot structure.

They argue that the project moved ahead without the required public review and approvals. In their court filing, the group said that no president has the right to tear down part of the White House or build a ballroom on public land without giving the public a chance to weigh in, and that the administration should have gone through the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts long before demolition began.

A federal judge already put a hold on the building until Congress could weigh in. Trump claimed that because the funds were being raised through private donors, Congress had no role in the matter. Not long after, Trump asked Congress for $1 billion for the project.

The court battle has become a larger fight over whether Trump, or any president, can treat the White House grounds as a personal private canvas for their own projects. Former first ladies like Michelle Obama and Jill Biden have denounced it, saying that the building is the "people's house" and that their family upheld that belief in their treatment of it.