Even if President Donald Trump's White House ballroom project is illegal, the Justice Department argued last week, federal courts are powerless to stop it. That assertion was consistent with Trump's general attitude toward judicial review, which he considers legitimate only when it allows him to do what he wants.

Last October, Trump demolished the East Wing of the White House, which he plans to replace with a building that would be 60% bigger than the Executive Residence in square footage and three times as big in cubic volume. In March, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, said the project required congressional approval because "no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims."

On Friday, Justice Department attorney Yaakov Roth urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to override Leon's preliminary injunction. Since the project is "well on its way" and serves national security interests, Roth said, it would be an "abuse of discretion" to order that it be halted even if the appeals court agrees with Leon on the merits.

Because Congress controls federal property and has not approved anything like Trump's plan, Leon ruled, "the ballroom construction project must stop until Congress authorizes its completion." Roth turned that reasoning on its head, saying only an act of Congress can thwart Trump's will.

The Justice Department took a similar position while defending Trump's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to justify sending alleged Venezuelan gang members to a Salvadoran prison. Trump's use of the AEA "would not be subject to review," Roth et al. told the D.C. Circuit in March 2025. In deciding who qualifies as an "alien enemy" subject to summary deportation, they told a federal judge two days later, Trump was making "national security judgments, which are not subject to judicial second-guessing."

The Supreme Court unanimously disagreed, ruling that AEA detainees have a due process right to challenge their treatment via habeas corpus petitions. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit also rejected the government's position, ruling that there was "no invasion or predatory incursion" to justify Trump's invocation of the AEA.

Trump likewise claimed he had unreviewable authority to deploy National Guard members in cities across the country. The 9th Circuit and the 7th Circuit disagreed, and so did the Supreme Court, which concluded that Trump had probably misinterpreted the statute on which he was relying.

Trump also thought the courts had no business second-guessing his blanket suspension of security clearances for lawyers at firms that had offended him by representing clients or causes he despises. But while individualized decisions regarding security clearances might be unreviewable, Leon ruled last year, Trump's broad retaliation against disfavored law firms violated the First Amendment.

The courts also consistently ruled against Trump's assertion of sweeping tariff powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. That law, he claimed, authorized him to completely rewrite the tariff schedule approved by Congress based on his unilateral declaration of an "emergency" created by an "unusual and extraordinary threat" from abroad.

Since the Supreme Court concluded that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs at all, there was no need to address the question of whether an "unusual and extraordinary threat" exists whenever the president says it does. But Trump's reaction to that decision reflected his general complaint about courts that get in his way.

The Democratic appointees who voted against the tariffs are a "disgrace to our nation," Trump said, because "they will automatically vote no." He added that the two Trump-nominated justices in the majority were "an embarrassment to their families" because they had revealed themselves as "fools and lapdogs for the RINOs and the radical-left Democrats."

In their eagerness to demonstrate their independence, a still-seething Trump complained a month later, such justices "openly disrespect the Presidents who nominate them." Trump, in short, thinks judges should be independent — as long as they side with him.

Jacob Sullum, a senior editor at Reason magazine, is the author of Beyond Control: Drug Prohibition, Gun Regulation, and the Search for Sensible Alternatives (Prometheus Books). Follow him on X: @jacobsullum. To find out more about Jacob Sullum and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

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