The president has repeatedly asserted that the judiciary has no business assessing whether his actions are lawful.
Even if the White House ballroom project were illegal, the Justice Department argued last week, federal courts lack the power to halt it. That stance aligns with Trump’s broader distrust of judicial review, which he accepts only when it serves his desired ends.
In October, Trump tore down the East Wing of the White House, intending to replace it with a structure that would be 60 percent larger in footprint and three times as voluminous in overall size. In March, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, appointed by George W. Bush, said the endeavor required congressional approval because “no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims.”
On Friday, Justice Department attorney Yaakov Roth urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to overturn Leon’s preliminary injunction. Since the project is “well on its way” and is framed as serving national security objectives, Roth argued that halting it would amount to an “abuse of discretion” even if the appeals court agreed with Leon on the merits.
Leon had ruled that, because Congress controls federal property and had not authorized anything resembling Trump’s plan, the ballroom construction project must stop until Congress provides authorization. Roth inverted that reasoning, contending that only an act of Congress could thwart Trump’s will.
The Justice Department took a parallel stance when defending Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) to justify sending alleged Venezuelan gang members to a Salvadoran prison. In March 2025, Roth and colleagues told the D.C. Circuit that Trump’s use of the AEA “would not be subject to review.” Two days later, they told a federal judge that Trump was making “national security judgments, which are not subject to judicial second-guessing,” in determining who qualifies as an “alien enemy” subject to expedited deportation.
The Supreme Court unanimously disagreed, ruling that AEA detainees have a due process right to challenge their treatment via habeas corpus petitions. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit also rejected the government’s position, finding there was “no invasion or predatory incursion” to justify Trump’s invocation of the AEA.
Trump similarly claimed unreviewable authority to deploy National Guard members to cities across the country. The 9th Circuit and the 7th Circuit disagreed, and so did the Supreme Court, which concluded that Trump had likely misread the statute on which he relied.
Trump also believed courts had no business second-guessing his blanket suspension of security clearances for lawyers at firms he perceived as hostile for representing clients or causes he despises. However, while individual clearance decisions might be unreviewable, Leon ruled last year that Trump’s broad retaliation against disfavored law firms violated the First Amendment.
The courts also consistently rejected Trump’s assertion of sweeping tariff powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). He argued that the law authorized him to rewrite the tariff schedule approved by Congress based on a unilateral declaration of an “emergency” created by an “unusual and extraordinary threat” from abroad.
Since the Supreme Court concluded that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs at all, there was no need to address whether an “unusual and extraordinary threat” exists whenever the president claims one. Yet Trump’s reaction to that decision reflected his broader grievance against courts that obstruct him.
The Democratic appointees who voted against the tariffs were labeled a “disgrace to our nation” by Trump, who claimed they would “automatically vote no.” He added that the two justices nominated by him in the majority were “an embarrassment to their families” for having shown themselves as “fools and lapdogs for the RINOs and the radical-left Democrats.”
In a bid to demonstrate their independence, a still-displeased Trump complained a month later that such justices “openly disrespect the Presidents who nominate them.” In short, he maintains that judges should be independent—so long as they decide for him.
© Copyright 2026 by Creators Syndicate Inc.
