On December 8, 2025, in Washington, DC, demolition work continued where the East Wing of the White House once stood. President Donald Trump ordered the 123-year-old East Wing and Jacqueline Kennedy Garden to be leveled to make way for a recent 90,000-square-foot ballroom. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON – Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche argued in a court filing that a shooting Saturday near the White House provided further evidence of the need for an East Wing ballroom with “a heavy steel roof, a drone-proof roof, missile- and drone-proof columns, bullet-proof, ballistic-proof and explosion-proof glass” and other features.
A gunman opened fire at a U.S. Secret Service checkpoint at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue and was killed when agents returned fire. According to the Secret Service, a bystander was also shot and injured.
According to the agency, President Donald Trump was at the White House during the incident but was uninjured and ongoing operations were not affected.
“This second attack on the President this month underscores the urgent need for state-of-the-art, high-level security at the White House, including the Ballroom, a coherent, unified and coherent part of the East Wing project that is critical to national security and is being built to ensure that the President can carry out his constitutional duties in a safe and highly secured facility,” Blanche argued.
The acting attorney general, Trump’s former personal defense attorney, filed the amendment meager Sunday against a federal court command This temporarily halted any above-ground construction work on the ballroom.
Shooting at the press dinner
The proposed ballroom “will provide a ‘SAFE HARBOR’ from attackers like those of last night and April 25,” Blanche wrote, referring to the gunman who opened fire at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last month.
The suspected shooter, Cole Tomas Allen, the pleaded He is not guilty, is charged with attempted assassination of the president, and is being held in prison in Washington, DC, where he is awaiting trial.
The Trump administration and his supporters in Congress stepped up their calls for a secure ballroom after the shooting at the historic annual dinner, where Trump, the first lady and several Cabinet officials were safely evacuated.
But skepticism from some Senate Republicans about the apply of taxpayer money has nearly wiped out $1 billion in intelligence funding Suggestion – $220 million of that was earmarked for the ballroom.
Trump claims that the ballroom is funded by private donors and regularly speaks about the project at independent events.
Drone port, sniper facilities
Blanche described the lawsuit against the White House construction project as “meritless.” The National Trust for Historic Preservation filed the lawsuit in December, less than two months after Trump destroyed the East Wing of the White House to make way for the huge building.
The lawsuit, Blanche argued, “was a major attack on our country in that the military, intelligence and law enforcement agencies were not happy about all of these top secret features being revealed to potential enemies, criminals and everyone else, including the fact that there will be a large government drone port and sniper installations on the heavily secured ballroom roof.”
The proposed ballroom would feature “bomb shelters, a state-of-the-art hospital and medical facilities, and top-secret military installations, structures and equipment,” according to court documents.
Trump posted an image of the submission on his Truth Social platform on Monday morning.
The president also thanked the Secret Service on Truth Social in the early hours of Sunday.
“This event comes one month after the shooting (White House Correspondents’ Dinner) and shows how important it is for all future presidents to have the most secure room of its kind ever built in Washington, DC. Our country’s national security demands it!” He wrote.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
