Talk of the Town
(WASHINGTON) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a post on X, said the Pentagon will hold Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly accountable under the military code of justice for “conduct [that] was seditious in nature,” referring to a video Kelly participated in that told United States service members they have a right to refuse unlawful orders.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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(WASHINGTON) — The White House on Thursday presented the latest plans for the East Wing renovation project, the construction of a 90,000-square-foot ballroom, in a public meeting of the National Capital Planning Commission.
The project’s architect, Shalom Baranes, said during the meeting that the White House is considering adding a one-story addition to the West Wing to restore “symmetry” to the complex after the East Wing ballroom project is complete.
His comments came after announcing a two-story colonnade would connect the East Room in the White House to the new ballroom.
“The White House is therefore considering the idea of a modest one-story addition to the West Wing colonnade, which would serve to restore a sense of symmetry around the original central pavilion.”
Baranes also clarified details about the expansion project, telling commissioners the East Wing expansion would include a second floor, and that the new ballroom would have roughly 40-foot ceilings, be roughly 22,000 square feet of the nearly 90,000 square foot project, and be able to accommodate up to 1,000 seated guests.
Phil Mendelson, the Washington City Council Chairman and member of the planning commission, said he felt the East Wing design could appear to be “overwhelming” the existing White House structure.
Baranes said the 45,000 square foot project would “exactly” match the height of the White House when completed.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly increased the size and cost of the ballroom project. Last month, he said it would cost $400 million, after an initial estimate of $200 million. The White House has said the project will be funded by private donations.
Answering questions from commissioners, Baranes said the potential project would add a story to the West Wing colonnade, and not the West Wing building proper.
He also offered no timetable for the potential addition and did not present any new renderings or drawings.
Josh Fisher, a White House official who also supplemented the presentation, said the Trump administration is also considering changes to Lafayette Park and the visitor screening areas on the White House complex in the future.
Will Scharf, a senior White House official who sits on the Capital Planning Commission, noted that Trump is hosted at Windsor Castle when he visits the United Kingdom, but when the King of England visits the White House, he may be hosted in a “tent” on the White House lawn.
“That, to me, is not a good look for the United States,” he said.
James Blair, another Trump appointee on the commission, said the current White House can’t “accommodate” efforts for the president to “break bread” with groups of lawmakers.
Other commissioners affiliated with the city expressed some reservations about the scale of the project and the fact that demolition started before the plan was presented.
The White House announced the ballroom construction project in late July, and demolition began suddenly on the East Wing in late October, when workers were spotted tearing down the wing of the White House that contained the first lady’s offices.
Scharf pointed out that demolition began at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum before the renovation plan was presented to local bodies.
In December, the National Trust for Historic Preservation filed a lawsuit to stop the East Wing construction project by claiming the administration had circumvented the required review process for federal projects.
In a hearing in that case, the administration told a federal judge it would submit plans for the project to the relevant federal oversight bodies.
The judge said he would hold a follow-up hearing on the White House’s process in January and declined to stop construction at the time.
Days later, the administration submitted formal applications and plans for the renovation project to the NCPC and the Commission of Fine Arts, a White House official confirmed to ABC News at the time.
In its filing in the case brought by the historic preservation group, the Justice Department argued that without a permanent ballroom, the White House can no longer meet the needs of the president as he fulfills his constitutional duty to “receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers.”
“It is entirely fitting, then, that the presidential residence and workplace be equipped for that purpose. Given modern needs, the White House is not,” the Justice Department argued.
Even as it determined in late August that the White House ballroom would have “no significant impact” on the surrounding grounds, the National Park Service did highlight some of the adverse effects of the project, presaging concerns that have since been echoed by preservationists, architects and designers.
“The new building’s larger footprint and height will dominate the eastern portion of the site, creating a visual imbalance with the more modestly scaled West Wing and Executive Mansion,” the NPS report noted. “Adding a second story to the East Colonnade will further modify the setting, contrasting with the single-story design of the West Colonnade and changing the traditional spatial organization and sightlines of the grounds.”
Such changes, the report indicated, “will adversely alter the design, setting, and feeling of the White House and grounds over the long-term,” while the destruction of the East Wing would result in “the permanent loss of a component that has been integral to White House operations since 1942.”
Still, the “environmental assessment” — prepared by the deputy director of the park service and signed by its comptroller — concluded that the benefits of a new ballroom for state functions would outweigh the adverse effects “by reducing reliance on temporary event infrastructure, minimizing wear on the grounds, and improving functionality for large gatherings.”
The White House announced the ballroom construction project in late July, and demolition began suddenly on the East Wing in late October, when workers were spotted tearing down the wing of the White House that contained the first lady’s offices.
Trump has repeatedly increased the size and cost of the construction 90,000 square foot ballroom project. Last month, he said it would cost $400 million, after an initial estimate of $200 million. The White House has said the project will be funded by private donations.
The president has also moved to fill both advisory boards supervising the ballroom project with his own aides and appointees.
He also spent some of his vacation working on the project: Last Friday in Florida, he visited Arc Stone & Tile, an Italian stone importer, and spent roughly an hour at the showroom before purchasing onyx and marble for the ballroom.
The White House expects to make its final presentations to the Commission of Fine Arts in February, and to the National Capitol Planning Commission in March, and will submit its final plan for the project by the end of January, a White House official told ABC News.
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(WASHINGTON) — A federal appeals court on Friday denied a request to reconsider an earlier decision that prevented a federal judge from investigating whether Trump administration officials acted in contempt for allegedly violating a court order when it deported hundreds of alleged gang members to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act in March.
The decision will allow Judge James Boasberg to attempt to proceed with the early stages of the contempt proceedings, including requesting evidence from the Trump administration about the decision not to turn around a plane bound for El Salvador after he ordered it be returned.
In a statement authored by three judges in the majority, the court described Boasberg’s actions as “a measured and essential response to what it reasonably perceived as shocking Executive Branch conduct.”
“The district court has every ability to set a new deadline for production of the information it sought regarding the probable contempt it identified or to proceed otherwise within his sound discretion,” the ruling said. “For its part, the government will have the full opportunity at the appropriate time to raise any defenses it may have. If it is dissatisfied with any appealable order the district court may enter, it will have the opportunity to seek review through the ordinary process. That is how our system of justice is designed to work.”
On Monday, Boasberg said the parties will discuss at a hearing on Wednesday how to proceed with the court’s contempt inquiry.
In the time between Boasberg’s original order and Friday’s decision, a whistleblower came forward to allege the Trump administration deliberately planned to defy Boasberg’s order. That new context could inform how Boasberg proceeds with the case.
“The facts the district court recounted present grave rule-of-law concerns. Obedience to court orders is vital to the ability of the judiciary to fulfill its constitutionally appointed role. Judicial orders are not suggestions; they are binding commands that the Executive Branch, no less than any other party, must obey,” the ruling said.
Lee Gelernt, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, told ABC News the ruling will allow the group to proceed before Boasberg.
“And now we have more evidence that the government deliberately violated the court’s order not to hand over the Venezuelan men to El Salvador,” Gelernt said.
The Trump administration in March invoked the Alien Enemies Act — an 18th-century wartime authority used to remove noncitizens with little-to-no due process — to deport two planeloads of alleged migrant gang members to the CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador by arguing that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a “hybrid criminal state” that is invading the United States.
Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order and ordered that the planes be turned around, but Justice Department attorneys said his oral instructions directing the flight to be returned were defective, and the deportations proceeded as planned.
Boasberg subsequently sought contempt proceedings against the government for deliberately defying his order.
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(WASHINGTON) — Democratic lawmakers warned the Trump administration that they’re “examining all legal options” to hold it accountable to Friday’s deadline ordering the Department of Justice to release all its files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accusing the administration of “breaking the law.”
The Justice Department was set to release on Friday hundreds of thousands of documents stemming from its investigations into Epstein, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in an interview with Fox News.
But as the administration reviews the documents for sensitive materials, Blanche said more productions would be coming over the next several weeks — indicating the administration does not believe it can fully comply with a law mandating the release of all files by 11:59 p.m. on Friday.
“So today, several hundred thousand, and then over the next couple of weeks I expect several hundred thousand more,” Blanche said.
The comments set off immediate reaction from lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Schumer charged that the administration is “hell-bent on hiding the truth” while asserting that failure to release all of the Epstein documents by Friday’s deadline would be “breaking the law.”
“Senate Democrats are working closely with attorneys for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and with outside legal experts to assess what documents are being withheld and what is being covered up by Pam Bondi. We will not stop until the whole truth comes out,” Schumer pledged in a statement. “People want the truth and continue to demand the immediate release of all the Epstein files. This is nothing more than a cover up to protect Donald Trump from his ugly past.”
Trump has denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, and said he hadn’t spoken to Epstein for more than a decade at the time of his arrest in 2019.
Trump’s name was mentioned several times across the hundreds of Epstein files that were made public earlier this year. White House chief of staff Susie Wiles told Vanity Fair in an article published this week that Trump “is in the file” but that “he’s not in the file doing anything awful.”
Reps. Robert Garcia and Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrats on the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees, said they’re examining “all legal options” after “the Department of Justice is now making clear it intends to defy Congress itself.”
“Donald Trump and the Department of Justice are now violating federal law as they continue covering up the facts and the evidence about Jeffrey Epstein’s decades-long, billion-dollar, international sex trafficking ring,” Garcia and Raskin said in a statement.
“Courts around the country have repeatedly intervened when this Administration has broken the law. We are now examining all legal options in the face of this violation of federal law. The survivors of this nightmare deserve justice, the co-conspirators must be held accountable, and the American people deserve complete transparency from DOJ,” they added.
The White House has not publicly commented on the criticism from Democrats.
Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, who led the charge to force the vote to compel the Justice Department to release the files, posted the legislative text of the bill he co-authored highlighting the phrase “not later than 30 days after the date of enactment of this act” and also the word “all” as it pertained to “unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in the possession of the Department of Justice, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Attorneys’ Offices.”
Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee who has long been investigating Epstein’s financial ties, proclaimed that anything short of a full release of the files by end of day Friday amounts to a “violation of the law.”
“The law Congress passed did not say ‘release some of the Epstein files’ or ‘release the files whenever it’s convenient for Donald Trump.’ Anything short of a full release today is a violation of the law and a continuation of this administration’s coverup on behalf of a bunch of pedophiles and sex traffickers,” Wyden wrote in a statement.
Blanche, during the Fox News interview, suggested that the administration’s review has been partially hamstrung by a ruling from a judge in the Southern District of New York that demanded the administration verify that its review is fully protecting the identities of victims.
Blanche added that “there’s a lot of eyes” looking over the documents to ensure victim identities have been redacted. The Justice Department in recent weeks has enlisted scores of attorneys from the National Security Division to conduct the review, according to sources familiar with the matter.
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