As GOP leaders leaped to defend President Donald Trump’s decision to tear down the East Wing of the White House last year, one Republican lawmaker privately warned a senior White House aide that he had “substantial concerns” and demanded answers about how the decision was made.
Administration officials had pledged the project would not “interfere” with existing structures, and the public had no warning about the demolition.
“The stark images of the East Wing demolished in mere days were disturbing to Americans who cherish preservation of our nation’s history,” Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio), co-chair of the congressional Historic Preservation Caucus, wrote in an Oct. 24 letter obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request and shared with The Washington Post.
Turner’s correspondence to Will Scharf, Trump’s staff secretary and chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission, the review committee with the power to approve or reject the ballroom project, raised questions about oversight, transparency and process, including whether the White House had taken steps to preserve artifacts.
The communication, obtained by the government watchdog group Public Citizen, adds to the public understanding of sweeping concerns voiced by members of Congress, preservationists and others over transparency and other issues with Trump’s project. A federal judge is weighing a legal challenge to the construction.
Scharf responded more than seven weeks later, telling Turner that Trump administration officials did not consult with or get the approval of the commission before tearing down the East Wing. But, he added, they were not required to since the commission’s review process covers only “vertical” construction — not demolition or site preparation. Scharf has made the same argument several times since, a position critics have blasted as absurd because those three steps are so closely linked — and because part of the commission’s duty in reviewing projects is to consider the preservation of buildings that already exist.
Turner declined, through a spokeswoman, to discuss the letter or his concerns, and none of the other 17 Republicans on the Historic Preservation Caucus responded to interview requests.
The letter from Turner “revealed what people were really thinking,” said Jon Golinger, democracy advocate at Public Citizen. “I bet there’s a lot more high-ranking Republicans who feel the same.”
Trump has cast the 90,000-square-foot, privately funded addition as a needed upgrade to the White House that taxpayers will not have to support. Administration officials have publicly identified about two dozen companies and about a dozen individual donors they say have already contributed hundreds of millions toward the $400 million project, including major corporations such as Amazon, Google and Palantir that collectively have billions of dollars in contracts before the administration. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
Americans oppose Trump’s demolition of the White House’s East Wing by a more than 2-to-1 margin, according to an Economist/YouGov poll conducted this month.
Given that, Golinger said, he’s not surprised by Republicans’ relative silence on the project in a midterm election year.
“I certainly haven’t seen a lot of campaign ads saying, ‘Elect me for this reason,’” Golinger said. “No Republicans have had to … put their name behind this project and say, ‘This is what I stand for.’”
Many liberal lawmakers and political groups, meanwhile, have invoked the ballroom in appeals to voters ahead of the midterms. Congressional Democrats have pressed the Trump administration and its allies to divulge more details, asking whether donors stand to gain for their contributions.
“BLOCK Trump’s White House Ballroom,” said one fundraising email sent by Defend Democracy Now PAC last month. “Top Democrats are fighting TOOTH AND NAIL to stop this wasteful project in its tracks.”
On Oct. 30, Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-New Mexico), Turner’s fellow co-chair on the Historic Preservation Caucus, was among the 60 House Democrats who sent Trump a public letter asking for some of the same information Turner had requested privately less than a week before.
U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon is expected to rule soon on whether the project can proceed after criticizing the Trump administration for making an “end run” around congressional oversight by soliciting private donations for the project rather than seeking taxpayer money.
At a court hearing last month, Leon expressed skepticism of Justice Department lawyers’ argument that Congress had authorized the White House to make changes to its grounds by setting aside several million dollars in funding and allowing the Interior Department to solicit gifts for national parks.
Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, said the congressional authorization was narrow and limited to matters such as White House maintenance, not carte blanche to undertake one of the biggest changes in the White House’s history. Justice Department lawyers have argued that any pause on the project could pose a national security risk and said they will immediately appeal if Leon grants a stay on construction.
If he rules that Congress must explicitly authorize the ballroom building, Trump could press congressional Republicans to deliver, which would commit Turner to a public up-or-down vote.
“There will be nowhere to run,” Golinger said, “and nowhere to hide.”
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