DOJ jumps into action — to defend Trump's ballroom plan and attack those challenging it
Following the White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting, DOJ's Brett Shumate calls National Trust's ballroom lawsuit "dangerous." And, for paid subscribers: Closing my tabs.
In the aftermath of Saturday night’s shooting by a man who was stopped one floor away from where the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was taking place, President Donald Trump said in his news conference later that night that the shooting reinforced the need for his East Wing ballroom.
In a letter posted online by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Sunday, the administration doubled down — and apparently envisions and hopes for a United States where Trump and future presidents “no longer need to venture beyond the safety of the White House perimeter to attend large gatherings.“
Yes, it is reported that the suspected shooter, “in a missive sent to family members moments before the attack,“ per The Washington Post, described an aim of killing members of the Trump administration. Yes, it is also true that, outside of the same hotel in 1981, then-President Reagan was shot by John Hinkley. But to say that the answer is building a White House from which the president never needs to leave does not inspire confidence either in the future of American democracy or the plans of this administration, given their track record.
Per the Sunday letter, it was sent by Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate, the head of DOJ’s Civil Division, to Greg Craig, the Foley Hoag partner and former Obama White House counsel who is representing the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the organization’s challenge to Trump’s ballroom plans.
Shumate’s letter is a political diatribe, not a legal document, that claims the shooting “proves” Trump’s White House ballroom construction “is essential for the safety and security of the President, his family, his cabinet, and his staff.“
In it, Shumate — who has never, it appears, worked at the White House — wrote to Craig — who worked in the White House for two presidents — that the “lawsuit puts the lives of the President, his family, and his staff at grave risk.“
He then told Craig that if the National Trust does not dismiss its “frivolous lawsuit” — that has already led to a preliminary injunction being issued, so, no, it’s not frivolous — by 9 a.m. Monday, “the government will move to dissolve the injunction and dismiss the case in light of last night’s extraordinary events.”
In the offensive letter, Shumate conflates history with current dangers, the reality of violent mass shootings in the U.S. with dangers Trump faces, the dangers a president faces whenever outside of a federal facility with the dangers faced on Saturday night, the security of a president when within a presidential facility with the need for Trump’s ballroom, non-White House events like the one that Trump was attending on Saturday with White House events, and then mixes and matches among all of these justifications to conclude that the National Trust’s lawsuit is “dangerous.”
Violence is not the answer, and the shooting was unambiguously bad. Trump’s proposed ballroom would not fix the problem, however, and the lawsuit challenging the ballroom effort is neither frivolous nor dangerous.
What is dangerous is DOJ’s Civil Division chief sending a letter like this to a private plaintiff’s counsel — especially when it’s almost certainly being done and shared publicly by the acting attorney general because it’s what Trump wants.
Closing my tabs
This Sunday, these are the tabs I am closing:
For those who don’t know what this is, it’s my effort to give a little thank you to paid subscribers. “Closing my tabs” is, literally, me looking through the stories and cases open — the tabs open — on my computer and sharing with you all some of those I was unable to cover during the week but that I nonetheless want to let you know that I have on my radar. Oftentimes, they are issues that will eventually find their way back into the newsletter as a case discussed moves forward or something new happens that provides me with a reason to cover the story more in depth.
