Trump’s East Wing Construction Plans Can Continue, Judge Rules

President Donald Trump can proceed, for now, with work to redo the East Wing of the White House and make way for a 90,000 square foot ballroom.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States hasn’t established imminent irreparable harm to warrant halting construction for 14 days through a temporary restraining order, Judge Richard J. Leon of the US District Court for the District of Columbia said in a Wednesday order.

But Leon said he “takes seriously the Government’s representations that its plans are not yet final,” that it will initiate consultations with the National Capital Planning Commission and Commission of Fine Arts by the end of December, and that no above-ground construction will begin before April.

The trust sued last week to stop construction, asserting that “no president is legally allowed to tear down portions of the White House without any review whatsoever.” The trust asserts the White House is required to obtain approvals from Congress and federal commissions that oversee development in the district.

“But bare procedural injury, standing alone, is insufficient to demonstrate irreparable harm,” Leon said.

The government has also represented that structural work won’t begin until January for the colonnade and February for the ballroom. And, according to the government, nothing about the ballroom’s size or scale has been finalized. Based on those representations, the judge said, there’s no “sufficiently imminent risk or irreparable aesthetic harm” to warrant a temporary restraining order.

But Leon said that if any below-grade construction dictating the size or scale of the ballroom occurs before the court rules on the trust’s preliminary injunction motion, the government “should be prepared to take it down depending on the Court’s resolution of the merits of this case.”

A hearing on the trust’s preliminary injunction motion is scheduled for Jan. 15.

Foley Hoag LLP represents the trust.

The case is Nat’l Tr. for Hist. Pres. in the US v. Nat’l Park Serv., D.D.C., No. 1:25-cv-04316, 12/17/25.