Wednesday Reads: The Demolition of U.S. Democracy

Good Morning!!

This looks like a war zone.

I’m heartsick about what Trump is doing to the White House. The White House belongs to the American people, not to the current president. But Trump is doing whatever he wants to our government and to “the people’s house.”

Yesterday, at his substack, Law Dork, Chris Geidner posted the clearest photos of Trump’s demolition I have seen so far. From the photos, it’s clear that either the entire East Wing or most of it will be destroyed. The first photo shows the destruction of the front of the building, and the second shows the damage from above, show how far back the damage to the roof goes. I can’t post the photos here–they are protected–but you can see them at the link.

From the article:

Exclusive: Trump’s demolition of the White House East Wing is nearly complete.

Photos obtained exclusively by Law Dork on Tuesday show that President Donald Trump is completely demolishing the East Wing of the White House as part of his stated plan to build a ballroom befitting his standards on the White House grounds.

Although Trump earlier had said the ballroom “won’t interfere with the current building,“ this week it became abundantly clear that was a lie. And, this dramatic change to the governmental building, Trump says, is happening care of private money and outside of any governmental — and transparent — funding process.

After The Washington Post first reported on Monday that demolition had begun, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday night that Treasury Department employees next door to the demolition were told to “refrain from taking and sharing photographs of the grounds, to include the East Wing, without prior approval from the Office of Public Affairs.“

On Tuesday, Law Dork obtained these photographs taken of the ongoing demolition.

Although the Post’s initial story detailed the “East Wing facade“ being demolished and that teams on Monday were “demolishing a portion ofthe East Wing,“ the Tuesday photograph obtained by Law Dork makes clear that most if not all of the entirety of the East Wing is being demolished.

A second photo obtained by Law Dork from another angle shows the extent of the demolition has already reached all but the western and northern walls of the East Wing.

Geider links to this piece by Ryan Gottleib at ENR East: White House Ballroom Build Advances as Oversight Gaps Emerge.

Demolition crews began work Oct. 20 on the East Wing of the White House to clear space for a privately funded 90,000-sq-ft ballroom addition valued at roughly $200 million at the behest of President Donald Trump

The project, announced July 31 by the White House, will be built by Clark Construction Group with AECOM as engineer and McCrery Architects as designer.

Officials said it will create a larger venue for state and ceremonial events, financed entirely by the president and “patriot donors.”

The addition marks the most substantial change to the Executive Residence since the Truman reconstruction of 1948-52. Renderings depict a limestone-clad structure with tall arched windows, ballistic-resistant glazing and interiors described by the White House as “ornately designed.” [….]

The design calls for the addition to remain structurally distinct from the residence while echoing its neoclassical form. The press office said the ballroom “will be substantially separated from the main building… but its theme and architectural heritage will be almost identical.”

As for Trump gaining approval for the project, he took care of that by appointing a sycophant.

Regulatory filings show that as of Sept. 4 no submission had been made to the National Capital Planning Commission, which reviews major federal projects in the capital region.

 

Commission Chairman Will Scharf, who also serves as White House staff secretary, said during a public meeting that “what we deal with is essentially construction, vertical build,” explaining why demolition and site-preparation work began before commission review. The interpretation leaves design oversight unresolved, even as groundwork proceeds.

Under the Presidential Residence Act, the White House is managed by the National Park Service and operated by the Executive Office of the President’s Facilities Management Division.

While Section 107 of the act exempts the executive residence from mandatory review, Executive Order 11593, issued in 1971, directs federal agencies to consult with the U.S. Interior Dept. before altering historic structures.

Past administrations have voluntarily submitted major projects for review by the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts. These measures, while not legally binding, form the preservation framework that has guided White House alterations for decades and remains relevant even for privately funded work.

More information on Trump’s vanity project from The Washington Post (gift article): White House expands East Wing demolition as critics decry Trump overreach.

You can read more using the gift link.

After the backlash, Trump has decided to submit his plans for review–now that the work is in progress.

Reuters: White House says it will submit ballroom plans for review, with demolition already under way.

The White House said on Tuesday it will submit plans for President Donald Trump’s $250 million White House ballroom project to a body that oversees federal building construction, even though demolition work began earlier this week.

Trump reveled on Tuesday in the demolition sounds by construction workers for the ballroom addition to the White House, the first major change to the historic property in decades.

But critics, aghast about images of the White House walls crumbling after Trump had pledged the project would not interfere with the existing landmark, said a review process should have taken place before the work began.

This schematic from the Washington Post article shows the planned layout of the new White House complex.

The White House still intends to submit those plans to the National Capital Planning Commission, which oversees federal construction in Washington and neighboring states, a White House official told Reuters

“Construction plans have not yet been submitted to the National Capital Planning Commission but will be soon,” the official said, adding that the NCPC does not have jurisdiction over demolition work.

The commission is now led by Will Scharf, a White House aide.

Asked why the demolition of East Wing walls was occurring despite Trump’s promise that it would not affect the existing building, the official said modernization work was required in the East Wing and changes had always been a possibility.

“The scope and size was always subject to vary as the project developed,” he said.

Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt thinks the critics of the East Wing teardown are just jealous.

The Daily Beast: Karoline Leavitt Gives Wild Defense of Trump Destroying the White House.

Karoline Leavitt thinks Democrats are just jealous that Donald Trump is building a swanky $250 million ballroom at the White House.

The White House press secretary says that’s the only way to explain the “fake outrage” after part of the White House’s iconic East Wing was demolished to make way for the 90,000-square-foot structure.

The Trump administration has received widespread backlash for starting work on the event space that will eventually dwarf the White House itself. “It’s not his house. It’s your house. And he’s destroying it,” former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton posted on X.

But Trump officials have attempted to convince the public that it’s what presidents, administrations, and White House staff have longed for, for 150 years.

“Are the Democrats jealous that Trump is building this big beautiful ballroom?” Fox News host Jesse Watters asked Leavitt on Tuesday.

Leavitt replied that it “certainly appears that way.”

“I believe there’s a lot of fake outrage right now because nearly every single president who has lived in this beautiful White House behind me has made modernizations and renovations of their own,” she added.

I’m speechless at this point.

Another Trump outrage from yesterday: Trump is demanding that he be paid $230 million for the prosecutions against him.

The New York Times (gift link): Trump Said to Demand Justice Dept. Pay Him $230 Million for Past Cases.

President Trump is demanding that the Justice Department pay him about $230 million in compensation for the federal investigations into him, according to people familiar with the matter, who added that any settlement might ultimately be approved by senior department officials who defended him or those in his orbit.

The situation has no parallel in American history, as Mr. Trump, a presidential candidate, was pursued by federal law enforcement and eventually won the election, taking over the very government that must now review his claims. It is also the starkest example yet of potential ethical conflicts created by installing the president’s former lawyers atop the Justice Department.

Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general; Attorney General Pam Bondi; and Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, with President Trump in the Oval Office last week.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times

Mr. Trump submitted complaints through an administrative claim process that often is the precursor to lawsuits. The first claim, lodged in late 2023, seeks damages for a number of purported violations of his rights, including the F.B.I. and special counsel investigation into Russian election tampering and possible connections to the 2016 Trump campaign, according to people familiar with the matter. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the claim has not been made public.

The second complaint, filed in the summer of 2024, accuses the F.B.I. of violating Mr. Trump’s privacy by searching Mar-a-Lago, his club and residence in Florida, in 2022 for classified documents. It also accuses the Justice Department of malicious prosecution in charging him with mishandling sensitive records after he left office.

Asked about the issue at the White House after this article published, the president said, “I was damaged very greatly and any money I would get, I would give to charity.”

He added, “I’m the one that makes the decision and that decision would have to go across my desk and it’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself.”

A bit more:

Lawyers said the nature of the president’s legal claims poses undeniable ethics challenges.

“What a travesty,” said Bennett L. Gershman, an ethics professor at Pace University. “The ethical conflict is just so basic and fundamental, you don’t need a law professor to explain it.”

He added: “And then to have people in the Justice Department decide whether his claim should be successful or not, and these are the people who serve him deciding whether he wins or loses. It’s bizarre and almost too outlandish to believe.”

The president also seemed to acknowledge that point in the Oval Office last week, when he alluded vaguely to the situation while standing next to the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and her deputy, Todd Blanche. According to Justice Department regulations, the deputy attorney general — in this case, Mr. Blanche — is one of two people eligible to sign off on such a settlement.

Unbelievable.

Arizona’s attorney general filed a lawsuit against House Speaker Mike Johnson yesterday.

NBC News: Arizona AG sues to force House Speaker Johnson to seat Democrat Adelita Grijalva.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes on Tuesday filed a lawsuit to try to force House Speaker Mike Johnson to swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, the Arizona Democrat who won her late father’s seat in a special election nearly one month ago.

Johnson, R-La., has said he will seat Grijalva once Senate Democrats agree to reopen the government. But the two parties haven’t been talking for weeks, and there is no indication when the shutdown might end.

The lawsuit, which Mayes threatened in a letter to Johnson last week, argues that the speaker’s delay is depriving the 813,000 residents living in Arizona’s 7th District of congressional representation. It lists the state of Arizona and Grijalva herself as plaintiffs and the U.S. House, as well as the House clerk and sergeant at arms, as defendants.

“Speaker Mike Johnson is actively stripping the people of Arizona of one of their seats in Congress and disenfranchising the voters of Arizona’s seventh Congressional district in the process,” Mayes said in a statement. “By blocking Adelita Grijalva from taking her rightful oath of office, he is subjecting Arizona’s seventh Congressional district to taxation without representation. I will not allow Arizonans to be silenced or treated as second-class citizens in their own democracy.”

As he left the Capitol on Tuesday evening, Johnson blasted the Arizona lawsuit as “patently absurd.”

Mayes, he said, has “no jurisdiction.”

We’ll see what the judge has to say about it.

At the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth (Secretary of War) tells military officials they can’t talk to Congress without his approval.

AP: Hegseth changes policy on how Pentagon officials communicate with Congress.

Leaders at the Pentagon have significantly altered how military officials will speak with Congress after a pair of new memos issued last week.

In an Oct. 15 memo, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his deputy, Steve Feinberg, ordered Pentagon officials — including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — to obtain permission from the department’s main legislative affairs office before they have any communication with Capitol Hill.

The memo was issued the same day the vast majority of Pentagon reporters exited the building rather than agree to the Defense Department’s new restrictions on their work, and it appears to be part of a broader effort by Hegseth to exert tighter control over what the department communicates to the outside world.

According to the memo, a copy of which was authenticated by a Pentagon official, “unauthorized engagements with Congress by (Pentagon) personnel acting in their official capacity, no matter how well-intentioned, may undermine Department-wide priorities critical to achieving our legislative objectives.”

More from NBC News: Pete Hegseth cracks down on Pentagon staff speaking to Congress.

It’s a departure from current practice; previously, Defense Department agencies were free to manage their own interactions with Capitol Hill.

But under Hegseth, the department has sought stricter control over messaging coming out of the Pentagon. Dozens of reporters turned in their badges and left the building last week, when most news agencies refused to sign unprecedented restrictions Hegseth imposed that threatened consequences for journalists who reported information he had not approved for release, even if it was unclassified.

The new directive, which would further curb information flow from the Pentagon to Congress, is designed “to achieve our legislative goals,” Hegseth and his deputy wrote in the memo.

“Unauthorized engagements with Congress by DoW personnel acting in their official capacity, no matter how well-intentioned, may undermine Department-wide priorities critical to achieving our legislative objectives,” the memo says, using the initialism for the “Department of War,” the Defense Department’s secondary but unofficial name used by the Trump administration.

Why is Hegseth so paranoid? Is it because he’s incompetent and realizes the competent DOD people know that?

Two more articles to check out:

The Washington Post (gift link): Health insurance sticker shock begins as shutdown battle over subsidies rages.