#john-roberts
4 entries with this tag
The Full Supreme Court, 5-4, Let Trump Keep Building His White House Ballroom Indefinitely — but Ducked the Actual Question of Whether He Can Demolish the People's House Without Congress, Ruling Only That the Preservation Group Suing Him Probably Lacks Standing; in a Striking Split, Chief Justice Roberts Joined the Three Liberals in Dissent, Writing That the Construction Is "Likely Unlawful"
On August 31, 2026, the full Supreme Court — going beyond Chief Justice Roberts's individual interim stay ten days earlier — ruled 5-4 that Trump may continue building his White House ballroom on the site of the demolished East Wing, indefinitely, while litigation continues. But the Court did not decide the question the case actually raises: whether a president can tear down and rebuild part of the White House without congressional approval. Instead, the unsigned majority ducked the merits on a technicality, holding that the National Trust for Historic Preservation likely lacks legal standing to sue at all. The lineup was unusual and revealing. The five justices in the majority were all conservatives, including Trump's three appointees. Chief Justice John Roberts — who had granted the temporary stay on August 21 — crossed over to join the Court's three liberals in dissent, writing that construction has now "proceeded for the better part of a year" and is "likely unlawful." That is the Chief Justice of the United States saying, on the record, that the president is probably breaking the law, and that five of his colleagues just cleared the way for him to finish doing it. The ballroom will be built. Whether he had the power to build it is a question the Court arranged never to have to answer.
A Week After Two Courts Ruled He Was Demolishing the People's House Without the Authority to Do It, Trump Got What He Wanted From the Supreme Court: Chief Justice Roberts Issued a Stay Letting Construction of His $400 Million East Wing Ballroom Keep Going — Overriding, For Now, the Judges Who Said a President Cannot Tear Down and Rebuild the White House Without Congress
On August 21, 2026, Chief Justice John Roberts granted a temporary stay allowing Trump to continue building his 90,000-square-foot, $400-million-plus ballroom on the site of the demolished White House East Wing — putting on hold, for now, the lower-court rulings that had ordered the aboveground work stopped. The legal challenge, brought by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, argues that the president had no authority to unilaterally demolish part of the White House and erect a massive new structure without congressional approval. A federal district court agreed, finding Trump exceeded his authority, and a divided appeals court affirmed it earlier in August. Rather than go to Congress — the branch the Constitution actually charges with funding and authorizing such things — the administration ran to the Supreme Court's shadow docket, and Roberts, handling the emergency application, blocked the lower courts' order while the justices decide what to do next. The stay is provisional and procedural, not a ruling that the demolition was lawful. But its practical effect is immediate and hard to reverse: the bulldozers and cranes keep working while the courts deliberate, and every day of construction makes the finding that he never had the authority harder to give any teeth. This is the next beat in a saga the archive has tracked from the first judge's order ("the President is not the owner") through the DOJ's shadow-docket gambit — a president reshaping the nation's most symbolic public building on his own say-so, and the courts, so far, letting him.
A Federal Appeals Court Ordered Trump to Stop Building His Ballroom Until Congress Approves It — So Instead of Asking Congress, His DOJ Ran to the Supreme Court's Shadow Docket to Override the Order, Arguing the Demolition and Construction Can't Wait Because of a "Recent Missile Threat on Air Force One"
On August 7, 2026, a majority of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ordered construction of Trump's roughly $900 million White House ballroom halted unless the administration obtains congressional approval — reaffirming the principle a district judge had already stated in voiding the project earlier: "The President Is Not the Owner." The White House does not belong to the president; he cannot unilaterally demolish and rebuild it, or spend the public's money on it, without Congress. Rather than go to Congress, the administration went to the Supreme Court. On the shadow docket, the Justice Department asked the justices to stay the injunction and let construction continue — and the justification it offered was a "recent missile threat on Air Force One," arguing that the ballroom's hardened, bomb- and missile-resistant construction is too urgent to pause. Chief Justice John Roberts set a deadline for the challengers to respond. The move is the now-familiar pattern: told by a court to stop, the administration neither complies nor persuades Congress but sprints to the Supreme Court to have the check overridden — dressing a vanity building project, whose cost quadrupled to nearly $900 million and whose funds were partly diverted without Congress, in the language of an emergency national-security threat.
Trump Loses Mail Ballot Case at Supreme Court 5-4 — His Own Appointee Barrett Writes the Majority Opinion — Then SCOTUS Denies His Carroll Appeal, Meaning He Must Pay $5 Million for Sexual Abuse
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Watson v. Republican National Committee that states may continue counting mail ballots that arrive after Election Day, provided they were postmarked on time — rejecting the RNC's argument that 19th-century federal election-day statutes require ballots to be received by Election Day. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Trump's own appointee, wrote the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and the three liberal justices. Barrett wrote: "The electorate's choice is made when voting is complete, not when ballots are received." She added: "At bottom, plaintiffs' theory is that because we are governed by 19th-century election-day laws, we are also governed by 19th-century voting practices." The ruling reversed the Fifth Circuit and protects laws in more than half the states and D.C. that permit late-arriving mail ballots. Alito dissented, warning of "lamentable consequences." Trump called it a "tremendous loss" and renewed his demand for the SAVE America Act — the voter ID bill the Senate has already rejected twice (four Republicans joined Democrats both times), that Trump held a bipartisan housing bill hostage over, that he canceled his own DNI nominee's hearing over, and that Senate Majority Leader Thune says "doesn't have the votes." The same day, the Court denied Trump's appeal in the E. Jean Carroll sexual abuse case without comment, meaning the $5 million verdict — for a jury finding that Trump sexually abused Carroll — stands. Nearly one in three Americans voted by mail in 2024. The noncitizen voting "crisis" the SAVE Act claims to address: Heritage Foundation's own database documents 68 cases out of over one billion ballots cast in 40 years.