ByWASHINGTON — Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche argued in a court filing that a shooting Saturday in the vicinity of the White House further proves the need for an East Wing ballroom with “a heavy steel, drone proof roof, missile resistant and drone proof columns, bullet, ballistic, and blast proof glass,” among other features.
A gunman opened fire at a U.S. Secret Service checkpoint at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue and was killed when agents returned fire. One bystander was also shot and injured, according to the Secret Service.
President Donald Trump was inside the White House during the incident but was unharmed, and no ongoing operations were impacted, according to the agency.
“This second attack on the President this month underscores the critical need for top level, state of the art security at the White House, including the Ballroom, a knitted, unified, cohesive part of the East Wing Project, which is vital for National Security, and is being constructed to ensure that the President can perform his constitutional duties in a safe and heavily secured facility,” Blanche argued.
The acting attorney general, Trump’s former personal defense lawyer, filed the supplemental brief Sunday opposing a federal court order that temporarily halted any above-ground construction on the ballroom.
Shooting at press dinner
The proposed ballroom “will provide a ‘SAFE HAVEN’ from attackers such as the one last night, and on April 25th,” Blanche wrote, referring to the gunman who opened fire at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last month.
The alleged shooter, Cole Tomas Allen, who pleaded not guilty, is charged with attempting to assassinate the president and is being held in jail in Washington, D.C., awaiting trial.
The Trump administration and his supporters in Congress amped up calls for a secure ballroom following the shooting at the historic annual dinner where Trump, the first lady and several Cabinet officials safely evacuated.
But skepticism among some Senate Republicans of using taxpayer dollars has all but scuttled a $1 billion Secret Service funding proposal — $220 million of which was earmarked for the ballroom.
Trump maintains the ballroom will be funded by private donors and routinely speaks about the project at unrelated events.
Drone port, sniper facilities
Blanche slammed the lawsuit against the White House construction project as “meritless.” The National Trust for Historic Preservation filed the suit in December, less than two months after Trump demolished the White House East Wing to make way for the large structure.
The lawsuit, Blanche argued, “has been a great attack on our Country in that the Military, Secret Service, and Law Enforcement are not happy that all of these Top Secret features have been revealed to potential enemies, criminals, and all others, including the fact that there will be a major drone port and Government sniper facilities on the heavily secured roof of the Ballroom.”
The proposed ballroom is slated to have “bomb shelters, a state of the art hospital and medical facilities, Top Secret military installations, structures, and equipment,” according to the court filing.
Trump posted an image of the filing on his Truth Social platform Monday morning.
The president also thanked the Secret Service on Truth Social in the wee hours of Sunday.
“This event is one month removed from the (White House Correspondents’ Dinner) shooting, and goes to show how important it is, for all future Presidents, to get, what will be, the most safe and secure space of its kind ever built in Washington, D.C. The National Security of our Country demands it!” he wrote.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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