Supreme Court demolishes separation of powers to facilitate the illegal demolition of the White House

Five of the Supreme Court’s Republicans — Roberts couldn’t stomach this one — have once again abused the shadow docket, this time allowing Trump’s reconstruction of the East Wing to continue. The order is based on an assertion that the historic preservation society that challenged the legality of Trump’s unilateral actions lacked standing, and Trump not being able to proceed immediately would constitute “irreparable harm” (because to the Roberts Court any case of Trump not being able to do what he wants immediately is “irreparable harm.) Given the realities of the American appellate process, the order makes the legality of Trump’s actions moot.

As Roberts says, this is a dangerous blow to the rule of law because Trump’s actions were plainly illegal:

This is not a close question, and judge-made rules of standing should allow construction to proceed only if it was extremely clear that the litigants lacked standing. This is absolutely not the case:

Roberts concludes:

One of the Supreme Court’s primary jobs is to ensure that one branch does not usurp the clear constitutional prerogatives of another. It unwillingness to do this because it would be inconvenient for Daddy Trump based on self-created technicalities it is plainly not applying in any kind of principled manner, is a gross abdication of responsibility. The Court is taking a sledgehammer to its own legitimacy by tying itself to Trump as his popularity plummets, as Roberts at least understands.

I’ve also seen some people argue that this could backfire, because the next Democratic president could simply take its own sledgehammer to the new ballroom. And, to be clear, they certainly should do that starting on Day 1. But the overwhelmingly likely outcome is that the Court will either “discover” that the plaintiff challenging the construction had standing this time, or simply allow a lower court injunction to stand without comment. Because they explicitly did not rule that Trump’s actions were legal, they remain free to actually apply the law as soon as a Democratic takes over the White House again.

…what totally gives away the show right up front is that the majority-that-will-not-sign-its-name attributes the unilateral action taken by president Trump against the express will of Congress to the “federal government.” Somewhere Juan Linz is shaking his head knowingly.

As with the mail-in ballot case, so in the ballroom case, SCOTUS includes a whopper in the opening line. Today: "In October 2025, the federal government started a project to replace the East Wing of the White House." "The federal government?" More like "the rogue president who thinks he's a king."

[image or embed]— Michael C. Dorf (@dorfonlaw.bsky.social) August 31, 2026 at 2:14 PM