President Donald Trump has appointed one of his top aides to head the planning commission overseeing his $250 million White House ballroom, fueling fears the controversial project could be fast-tracked despite growing public backlash.
William Scharf, a former personal lawyer to Trump who now serves as the White House staff secretary, was quietly appointed in July as chair of the National Capital Planning Commission, the agency responsible for overseeing construction and major renovations to government buildings across Washington.
The appointment of Scharf, who is known around D.C. as “the folder guy” for his role in handing Executive Order folders to Trump during signing ceremonies, was made days before Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced plans for the ballroom on July 31.
Two other Trump aides, Michael James Blair, who is a White House deputy chief of staff, and Stuart Levenbach, who works in the Office of Management and Budget headed by “Grim Reaper” Russell Vought, were also appointed to the Commission. They now represent the states of Virginia and Maryland, respectively.
Trump’s decision to appoint his own loyalists to the agency is likely to exacerbate concerns about the lack of transparency surrounding the ballroom renovation, which critics have described as a “presidential vanity project.”
On Tuesday, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit organization established by Congress to help preserve historic buildings, also sent a letter to Scharf and other administration officials, urging them to pause the demolition until the plans undergo “legally required public review processes.”
“Doing so will help ensure that the project both honors the exceptional historic significance of the White House and acknowledges the investment that the American people have in the preservation of this beloved place,” the Trust’s chief executive, Carol Quillen, wrote.
She also noted that the guidelines set by the Secretary of the Interior are meant to offer clear guidance for construction projects affecting historic properties.
These guidelines dictate that new additions “should not destroy the historic fabric of the property and that the new work should be compatible with existing massing, size, scale, and architectural features.”
“We are deeply concerned that the massing and height of the proposed new construction will overwhelm the White House itself—it is 55,000 square feet—and may also permanently disrupt the carefully balanced classical design of the White House with its two smaller, and lower, East and West Wings,” Quillen added.
The letter was sent to the heads of the three agencies responsible for reviewing the ballroom project: the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC), the National Park Service, and the Commission of Fine Arts.
All three are currently affected by the government shutdown, and as of this week, the White House had not yet sought approval from the NCPC for the ballroom construction.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
Communications director Steven Cheung turned to X to accuse the National Trust of being “run by a bunch of loser Democrats and liberal donors who are playing political games”.
Earlier, in interview with Fox’s Jesse Watters, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “I believe there’s a lot of fake outrage right now because nearly every single president who has lived in this beautiful White House behind me has made modernizations and renovations of their own.”
The idea of a White House ballroom has been a long-held dream for Trump, who first suggested it to then-Obama adviser David Axelrod in 2010.
“He says: ‘I build ballrooms. I build the most beautiful ballrooms in the world…. Let me build you a modular ballroom that you can assemble and take apart’,” Axelrod recalled in an interview with The New York Times.
The Obama administration did not take up Trump’s offer, but 15 years later, demolition began this week on the East Wing to make way for the ballroom.
The East Wing is a building that has housed generations of First Ladies, including Melania Trump, and their staffers.
It has also served as the entrance for millions of visitors around the world, who would begin their tours at the now decimated facade, passing Jackie Kennedy’s historic garden, portraits of past First Ladies, the in-house gift shop and several historic rooms along the way. White House tours have ceased indefinitely while construction is underway.
Once complete, the 90,000-square-foot ballroom will cater to more than triple the capacity of the East Room, which is the largest existing event space in the White House and can only hold a maximum of 200 people.
But many are unimpressed.
“It’s not his house. It’s your house. And he’s destroying it,” former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton posted on social media.
Trump insists the ballroom will be funded through private donors and his own money.
However, the president also suggested on Tuesday that a $230 million payment he is reportedly eyeing as compensation for his past legal battles could be used to help finance the project.
The comments came amid reports that the president was demanding his own Justice Department compensate him for the federal investigations he faced when Joe Biden was in power.
“They probably owe me a lot of money, but if I get money from our country, I’ll probably do something nice with it, like give it to charity or give it to the White House while we restore the White House,” he said.
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