Refiled as an integrated military complex.

Below Grade

August 14, 2026 · Ibid.

Woodcut-style cartoon: a cutaway of the White House South Lawn shows immaculate, untouched grass with a small placard reading NO CHANGES, while forty feet below a colossal gilded ballroom with chandeliers and a steel blast door is craned into an excavated pit, Trump in a hard hat riding a gold escalator down with a gold shovel as the Solicitor General, standing on the lawn above, holds up an emergency application and says 'Nothing above ground, Your Honors.'

The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court on Aug 14, 2026 to lift an injunction halting Trump's $400m White House ballroom project. The DC Circuit ruled Aug 7 that above-ground construction altering the White House's visible characteristics must stop by Aug 21 absent congressional approval, upholding Judge Richard Leon's April order. The DOJ brief recasts the 90,000 sq ft East Wing project as an 'integrated military complex' vital to national security; the National Trust for Historic Preservation sued in December after the East Wing was demolished.