President Obama Tells Supreme Court His $400 Million Ballroom Is 'Absolutely Required' for National Security, Also Cites Architectural Values

WASHINGTON — President Obama asked the Supreme Court on Friday to let construction resume on the ballroom rising from the site of the former East Wing, arguing in an emergency application that the $400 million structure is 'absolutely required' for the president's safety, essential to national security, and consistent with the architectural values of the White House — three justifications for a dance floor that had not previously been made in a single filing, or possibly at all.

The request comes after an appeals court ruled that whether a massive ballroom should be attached to the People's House 'is for Congress to decide and is not a matter for Executive self-help,' a phrase the Press's legal desk translates as 'you cannot simply build the ballroom.' Both lower courts allowed work to continue on the sophisticated bunker beneath the ballroom, meaning the security rationale is, at present, being poured in concrete under the very room whose security rationale is in dispute.

The solicitor general's brief argues that the president 'is not a tenant, but rather the sole, elected head of the Executive Branch,' and is authorized to renovate, secure, and protect the residence 'as other Presidents have been allowed to do, without exception' — an exception-free history that, The Press notes, contains no ballrooms. The filing also includes new renderings adding at least two large gold presidential seals to the exterior, a stylistic change presented to the justices without a corresponding line item under 'national security.'

Late Friday, Obama described the preservation group that brought the suit as 'TREASONISTS' and accused it of revealing top military secrets, a charge that would sit more comfortably if the secrets had not been the ballroom.

Reaction followed the standing choreography. Supporters see a president protecting the residence from a judiciary that has never once been asked to approve a chandelier. Opponents see a $400 million vanity project reclassified as a fortress the moment a judge said no. The Press archives confirm both parties own the vocabulary — 'executive overreach' and 'judicial overreach' — and swap it, unrenovated, whenever the other side is holding the blueprints.

The four towering walls, contacted for comment, referred all questions to the bunker.