Federal judge orders halt to construction on Trump’s White House ballroom

Donald Trump has made no secret of his concerns that a judge might stand in the way of one of the president’s top priorities: the White House ballroom construction project.

With this in mind, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon on Tuesday afternoon told Trump what he didn’t want to hear: As MS NOW confirmed, Leon has granted a preliminary injunction to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, temporarily blocking the administration from “taking any action in furtherance of the physical development of the proposed ballroom at the former site of the East Wing of the White House.”

Leon wrote in his order that the president of the United States is the “steward of the White House for future generations of First Families,” adding, “He is not, however, the owner!”

The nonprofit organization that brought the lawsuit insisted that the president exceeded his authority when he destroyed the East Wing and unilaterally launched the ballroom construction project without lawmakers’ approval.

There were earlier indications that Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, appeared sympathetic to the plaintiffs’ complaint, fueling anxiety in the Oval Office. Those hints proved true.

“[N]o statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have,” the court order added.

The jurist concluded that no work can continue until the project receives “express authorization” from Congress. The order takes effect in 14 days, allowing time for an appeal.

Predictably, the president did not respond well to the developments. In fact, Trump published a lengthy tirade to his social media platform that complained, oddly enough, about all of the other hypothetical cases the National Trust for Historic Preservation could’ve filed, but didn’t. From the online rant:

… The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a Radical Left Group of Lunatics whose funding was stopped by Congress in 2005, is not suing the Federal Reserve for a Building which has been decimated and destroyed, inside and out, by an incompetent and possibly corrupt Fed Chairman. The once magnificent Building is BILLIONS over budget, may never be completed, and may never open. All of the beautiful walls inside have been ripped down, never to be built again, but the National ‘Trust’ for Historic Preservation never did anything about it! Or, have they sued on Governor Gavin Newscum’s ‘RAILROAD TO NOWHERE’ in California that is BILLIONS over Budget and, probably, will never open or be used.

Trump’s extensive whining aside, it was notable that at no point in the president’s online statement did he respond to the substance of the legal complaint or respond to the court order on the merits.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”