More than half of the 45 men who have served as America’s commander in chief have been lawyers, but President Donald Trump isn’t one of them.
Still, that lack of legal training appears not to have stopped Trump from helping author a bizarre legal filing urging a Washington, D.C. court to toss out the lawsuit blocking construction of his $400 million ballroom in the wake of last weekend’s attempted shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
The Department of Justice filed the nine-page document on Monday seeking to have U.S. District Judge Richard Leon dissolve an injunction blocking any above-ground construction of the ballroom, citing “national security” grounds. Leon had ordered the ballroom portion of the project halted after the National Trust for Historic Preservation sued to stop construction.
While the last seven pages of the document appear no different from any other legal document, complete with citations to relevant case law in the “Blue Book” format familiar to anyone who has suffered through a legal education, the first two pages are dominated by a single massive paragraph that starts by mocking the name of the preservation group a la Trump’s frequent barbs.
It reads: ““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.”
The motion then recounts how the government “refused to continue funding” the group and calls it “very bad for our Country.”
It further accuses the preservation organization of “trying to stop” a project 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.”
“They were asked by the United States Military not to bring this suit because of the Top Secret nature of the important facility being built. They were shown detailed plans and specifications of this knitted, unified, and cohesive structure by Top Officers and Leaders in both the Military and Secret Service. 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,” it adds.
The legal document’s opening screed goes on to describe how the hardened bunker being constructed beneath where the White House East Wing once stood “does not work without” the proposed ballroom favored by Trump because the planned facility is “all one highly integrated unit” and asks Judge Leon to indicate that he’ll dissolve the injunction “for the sake of the safety of President Trump, future Presidents, and their families, Cabinets, and staff.”
For good measure, it also includes a claim that 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 White House did not respond to a query as to the authorship of the motion, which was signed electronically by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter and Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, but there is strong anecdotal evidence that the opening section of the brief was authored by the president.
The gratuitous references to “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and “Barack Hussein Obama” are regular features of Trump’s social media output, as are the unnecessary capitalizations of words and phrases such as “country,” “military,” and “governmental agency.”
Additionally, the section arguing about the purported standing to sue enjoyed by “a woman walking her dog” appears numerous times in Trump’s Truth Social posts about the matter as well as transcripts of multiple appearances in which he’s spoken about the lawsuit against the ballroom project.
Trump also posted the first few pages of the document to his Truth Social feed early on Tuesday, ahead of the official White House welcome ceremony for King Charles III and Queen Camilla as part of their state visit to Washington.
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