Demolition work continued on what had been the East Wing of the White House on December 8, 2025 in Washington, DC. President Donald Trump has ordered the razing of the 123-year-old East Wing and Jacqueline Kennedy Garden to make way for a recent 90,000-square-foot ballroom. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche argued in a court filing that Saturday’s shooting near the White House further validates the need for an East Wing ballroom with a “drone-resistant heavy steel roof, missile- and drone-resistant columns, and bulletproof, ballistic and blast-proof glass,” among other features.
A gunman opened fire at a U.S. Secret Service checkpoint at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue and was killed when agents returned fire. According to the Secret Service, a bystander was also shot and wounded.
According to the agency, President Donald Trump was at the White House during the incident but was unharmed and had no impact on ongoing operations.
“This second attack on the President this month underscores the critical need to ensure the highest level of state-of-the-art security in the White House, including in the Ballroom, which is an interconnected, unified and coherent part of the East Wing Project, which is critical to national security and is being built to ensure the President can perform his constitutional duties in a safe and closely guarded facility,” Blanche argued.
The acting attorney general, Trump’s former personal attorney, filed a supplement compact On Sunday, he opposes the federal court order which temporarily halted all ground work in the ballroom.
Shooting during a press dinner
The proposed ballroom “will provide a ‘SAFE HAVEN’ from attackers like the one last night and on April 25,” Blanche wrote, referring to the gunman who opened fire at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last month.
The alleged shooter, Cole Tomas Allen, who he begged he is innocent, is accused of attempting to assassinate the president and remains in prison in Washington awaiting trial.
The Trump administration and his supporters in Congress have stepped up calls for a sheltered ballroom following the shooting at the historic annual dinner, where Trump, the first lady and several Cabinet officials safely evacuated.
But skepticism by some Senate Republicans about the exploit of taxpayer dollars almost wiped out $1 billion in funding for the Secret Service application — Of which, $220 million was earmarked for the ballroom.
Trump maintains the ballroom will be funded by private donors and regularly speaks about the project at unrelated events.
Port for drones, facilities for snipers
Blanche described the lawsuit against the White House construction project as “baseless.” The National Trust for Historic Preservation filed the lawsuit in December, less than two months after Trump undressed the east wing of the White House to make room for a enormous structure.
The lawsuit, Blanche argued, “was a major attack on our country because the military, the secret service and law enforcement were not happy that all of these top secret elements were being revealed to potential enemies, criminals and everyone else, including the fact that the heavily secured roof of the ballroom would house a major drone port and government sniper facilities.”
Court documents say the proposed ballroom is to house “bomb shelters, a state-of-the-art hospital and medical facility, top secret military installations, structures and equipment.”
Trump sent photo of the report on his Truth Social platform on Monday morning.
In the early hours of Sunday, the president also thanked the Secret Service on Truth Social.
“This event has been postponed a month since the shooting (White House Correspondents’ Dinner) and demonstrates how important it is for all future presidents to obtain the safest and most protected space of its kind ever built in Washington, D.C. Our nation’s national security demands it!” He he wrote.
The National Fund for Monument Preservation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
