The day after the Saturday, April 25 shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, the Department of Justice asked the National Trust for Historic Preservation to voluntarily dismiss its lawsuit challenging Trump's $400 million White House ballroom. Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate, head of the Civil Division, wrote to Trust attorney Gregory Craig: “I hope that yesterday's narrow miss will help you finally realize the folly of a lawsuit that literally serves no purpose except to stop President Trump no matter the cost.” He added, “Enough is enough. Your client should voluntarily dismiss this frivolous lawsuit today in light of last night's assassination attempt on President Trump.” The letter, reposted by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, said, “Put simply, your lawsuit puts the lives of the President, his family, and staff at grave risk,” and gave the Trust until 9 a.m. Monday to drop the suit or face a motion to dismiss.
On Monday, April 27, the Trust refused. Craig responded: “Your assertion that this lawsuit puts the President's life at 'grave risk' is incorrect and irresponsible,” and, “Simply put, this case does not jeopardize the President's safety in any way.” He added, “And nothing prevents you from asking Congress at any time for the necessary authorization required by the Constitution and federal law.” He wrote, “What Saturday's awful event does not change is that the Constitution and multiple federal statutes require Congress to authorize construction of a ballroom on White House grounds, and that Congress has not done so.”
The Trust sued in December 2025, a week after the White House finished demolishing the East Wing to make way for the 90,000-square-foot ballroom that Trump said would fit 999 people. Nine days before the shooting, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon had blocked above-ground construction, writing: “National security is not a blank check to proceed with otherwise unlawful activity.” A day later the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit allowed construction to continue and scheduled a June 5 hearing.
Within hours of Cole Allen's arrest, Trump cited the shooting at a press conference to make the case for the ballroom: “It's got gunproof, it's bulletproof glass,” he said, adding that “today we need levels of security that probably nobody's ever seen before.” House Speaker Mike Johnson, Sen. Rick Scott and Rep. Mike Lawler pressed the case for the project in a series of Fox News interviews.
Update (October 2, 2026): In August 2026 the D.C. Circuit upheld Leon's injunction. The administration asked the Supreme Court on Aug. 14 to let construction continue, calling Leon's order “extraordinary and unlawful,” and on Aug. 21 Chief Justice John Roberts issued a one-page order staying the injunction while the appeal proceeds, Courthouse News reported.
Correction (October 2, 2026): This entry previously quoted Shumate as saying the suit puts the lives of the president, his family and his staff “at great risk,” the wording CNBC and the Washington Examiner reported. The Guardian quotes the letter as saying “grave risk,” and Craig's reply quotes it the same way, so the entry now uses that version. We removed a claim that legal commentators friendly to the administration called the letter “extraordinary” (the only such wording in the sources is the DOJ's own phrase “extraordinary events”), our characterization of the letter as a tactic the agency reserves for hostile foreign actors, and Public Citizen donor figures (16 of 24 donors with federal contracts, $191 billion to Lockheed Martin, 14 of 24 facing enforcement) and a $200 million original-estimate figure that we could not source.