| The full dimensions of the president’s obsession with building his new White House ballroom seemed to be on full display when he held a press conference immediately after the latest attempt on his life. He remarked that the Hilton Hotel, where the shooting occurred, is not “a particularly secure building” before pivoting to his ballroom pitch. |
| He said the ballroom would be “much more secure. It’s got, it’s drone proof, it’s bulletproof glass.” Then, he added, unconstrained by facts, “That’s why Secret Service, that’s why the military are demanding it. They’ve wanted the Ballroom for 150 years for lots of different reasons, but today’s, uh, a little bit different because today we need levels of security that probably nobody’s ever seen before.” |
| By the following morning, his MAGA allies were echoing their leader’s ballroom mania and disinformation campaign. But the real flowering of the president’s ballroom derangement syndrome occurred on April 27, when the Justice Department filed a motion in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia asking Judge Richard Leon to lift his previously issued order halting work on it. |
| Simply put, it may be the wackiest motion ever filed in a court in this country. It reads like one of President Trump’s Truth Social posts rather than a carefully crafted legal argument. |
| No lawyer should have filed it. |
| In normal times, none would have, fearing they would lose credibility with the court or face a judicially imposed sanction. Let’s hope that Todd Blanche, the Acting Attorney General, Trent McCotter, Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, and Stanley Woodward, the Associate Attorney General whose names appear on the motion, meet a similar fate. |
| That the leaders of the Justice Department would put their names on such a motion shows they have no respect for their obligations as lawyers or for the department they lead. |
| Their motion starts with a typical Trumpian attack on the group that obtained an injunction halting construction at the White House. “'The National Trust for Historic Preservation’ is a beautiful name, but even their name is FAKE because when they add the words 'in the United States’ to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, it makes it sound like a Governmental Agency, which it is not.” |
| “In fact,” it observes, “the United States refused to continue funding it in 2005 because they strongly disagreed with their mission and objectives. They are very bad for our Country. They stop many projects that are worthy and hurt many others. In this case, they are trying to stop one that is vital to our National Security, and the Safety of all Presidents of the United States, both current and future, their families, staff, and Cabinet members.” |
| And as if that were not bad enough, the motion goes on to say: “But this did not deter them because they suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome, commonly referred to as TDS, as noted by Democrat Senator John Fetterman, of Pennsylvania, and are represented by the lawyer for Barack Hussein Obama, Gregory Craig.” |
| By this point, any lawyer worth their salt would wonder if the people who filed the motion were in their right minds or if they had any respect for the judicial system. None of what they say about Trump Derangement Syndrome or former President Obama has anything to do with what the motion is asking the court to do. |
| But that is not accidental. The Trump Justice Department has long ago given up any pretense to being anything other than an extension of the president’s whims and desires. |
| As the New York Timesnotes, “The style of the motion leaves no doubt about the president’s significant influence over the decisions of the Justice Department. While parts of the motion are written in a traditional legal style, many sections are indistinguishable from the president’s combative posts on Truth Social.” |
| Recall that in a March 31 Truth Social Post, the president wrote: “The National Trust for Historic Preservation sues me for a Ballroom that is under budget, ahead of schedule, being built at no cost to the Taxpayer, and will be the finest Building of its kind anywhere in the World….” He added that “The National Trust for Historic Preservation [is] a Radical Left Group of Lunatics whose funding was stopped by Congress in 2005….” |
| The Justice Department’s April 27 motion argues that “Saturday’s narrow miss—which marks the third assassination attempt on President Trump since 2024—confirms what should have already been obvious: Presidents need a secure space for large events, that currently does not exist in Washington, D.C.… Three assassination attempts—including the attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, where an assassin’s bullet hit the President’s ear—is enough.” |
| “There is absolutely no argument that a woman walking her dog in the vicinity of the White House has STANDING to stop such a desperately needed structure for the people of the United States of America….” |
| The motion offers only the skimpiest legal argument for dissolving the injunction before returning to its Truth Social Style. “If any other President,” it says, “had the ability, foresight, or talents necessary, to build this ballroom, which will be one of the greatest, safest, and most secure structures of its kind anywhere in the World, there would never have been a lawsuit.” |
| And without a stitch of evidence, it asserts that “But, because it is DONALD J. TRUMP, a highly successful real estate developer, who has abilities that others don’t, especially those who assume the Office of President, this frivolous and meritless lawsuit was filed. Again, it’s called TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.” |
| Ironically, frivolous and meritless are fit terms to apply to the motion itself. |
| The American Bar Association (ABA)’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct are clear that lawyers may not bring such suits or make such arguments. They have a duty “not to abuse legal procedure” and must make only “good faith arguments in support of their clients’ positions.” |
| Assertions that the plaintiff in a case suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome or that a ballroom at the White House would protect a president from what happened at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner hardly qualify as “good faith arguments.” |
| Beyond what the ABA says, Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure prohibits lawyers from filing any motion that is “presented for any improper purpose.” All “claims, defenses, and other legal contentions” must be “warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law.” |
| It authorizes judges to “order an attorney, law firm, or party to show cause why conduct specifically described in the order has not violated Rule 11” and to impose sanctions for doing so. While the rule is “not intended to chill an attorney’s enthusiasm or creativity in pursuing factual or legal theories,” it is clear that lawyers must not cross the line between what is creative and what has no basis in fact or law. |
| The president is free to make baseless claims and invent explanations for why people oppose his plans on Truth Social. But the lawyers in the Justice Department are not when they submit a motion to a court. |
| Respecting that distinction has long been recognized as necessary to the preservation of the rule of law. Now it is up to Judge Leon to remind Blanche et. al. of that fact. |
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