The Trump administration asked the US Supreme Court on Friday to pause an order that would halt above-ground construction of a White House ballroom, arguing that the project is authorized by federal law and that a single district judge should not determine what measures are necessary to protect the president.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed the stay application on behalf of the National Park Service and other federal defendants, seeking an immediate administrative stay before the injunction takes effect August 21. The court ordered the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a congressionally chartered group that sued over the project’s impact on the historic White House, to respond by noon Tuesday.

US District Judge Richard Leon’s revised injunction permits below-ground construction and other work deemed “strictly necessary” to protect the president, his staff, and the White House grounds, but bars construction that would “lock in the above-ground size and scale of the ballroom.” A divided panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld that order August 7 but stayed its ruling for 14 days.

The dispute centers on whether federal law authorizes the administration to construct the project without more specific congressional approval. The lower courts concluded that neither a federal statute governing alterations and improvements to the White House nor the National Park Service Organic Act authorizes construction on this scale, and that the project therefore violates a separate law requiring express congressional authority for construction on federal parkland in Washington.

Sauer argues that Congress authorized the project through both statutes and that the National Trust lacks standing to challenge it. The National Trust, which sued alleging the project bypassed federal preservation and public-review requirements, established standing in the lower courts through member Alison Hoagland, an architectural historian who alleged various forms of harm. In a December 2025 court filing, Hoagland wrote:

If a ballroom were constructed, similar to that which the defendants in this action have proposed to be built on the former site of the East wing, it would cause permanent and irreparable harm to the White House and President’s Park. To have an adjacent structure overshadowing the White House, exceeding it in height and massing, would diminish the primacy of the White House, which makes its architectural statement through its singularity on the landscape. … Accordingly, I would suffer both professional and personal injuries, including to my aesthetic, cultural, and historical interests.

The Trump administration contends that Hoagland’s anticipated objections to a design she has not yet seen do not amount to a concrete injury sufficient to establish standing.

The application also emphasizes national security, describing the project as an “integrated military complex” incorporating bomb shelters, fortified structures, sniper positions, and a rooftop drone port. The government says construction is 65% complete and has passed the point at which major design changes are feasible.

The administration is asking the Supreme Court to stay the injunction while it prepares a petition asking the justices to hear the case. A ruling granting or denying the stay would not resolve the underlying merits of the dispute.