For a decade, President Donald Trump has bulldozed through the norms that govern the presidency. This week, that metaphor turned literal: The East Wing of the White House was demolished at Trump’s behest while bypassing a gauntlet of governmental and private entities normally consulted during major federal renovation projects in the nation’s capital.
Where the East Wing once stood, the president intends to erect a new 90,000-square-foot, $300 million ballroom primarily paid for with contributions from private donors and major corporations — a number of which have business before federal regulatory agencies or are currently subject to Justice Department litigation.
Now, a group of Senate Democrats is demanding answers about Trump’s actions and whether any of the donors could be engaging in “quid pro quo arrangements.”
In a letter to the heads of the National Park Service and the Trust for the National Mall, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and four colleagues are requesting a detailed accounting of the donors to the ballroom construction project, the amount each is contributing and specifics about the contracting and approval process for the demolition.
“The scale of funds raised for President Trump’s ballroom, President Trump’s personal involvement in fundraising for the project, and the number of corporate donors with business before the Trump Administration raise new questions about whether the Trust is facilitating corrupt access to and favor-seeking from President Trump and his Administration,” the senators write in the letter, provided first to MSNBC.
A slew of major corporations have contributed to the project so far, including Amazon, Apple, Comcast (the parent company of NBCUniversal), Meta, Palantir Technologies, cryptocurrency players and tobacco companies, among others.
“These solicitations by President Trump raised immediate ethics concerns,” the Senate Democrats write, citing donations from Google (which faces “antitrust litigation brought by the Department of Justice”), Union Pacific Railroad (“currently pursuing a $85 billion merger that will require federal approval”) and Caterpillar Inc. (“actively contesting penalties imposed by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration”).
“The American public deserves answers about the circumstances surrounding the demolition of the East Wing of the White House,” the senators write. Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.; Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.; Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.; and Ed Markey, D-Mass., joined Warren in signing onto the letter.
“Democrats are more concerned with President Trump’s historic beautification of the White House than they are for American citizens they are hurting because of their reckless government shutdown,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told MSNBC in a statement. The White House did not address a question about concerns of a possible quid pro quo between the Trump administration and ballroom donors.
The Trust for the National Mall’s role is “to manage private donations made to support the project as the nonprofit partner of the National Park Service,” a spokesperson told MSNBC.
How the process is designed to work
For days, images of the East Wing’s demolition have ricocheted across social media, stunning Americans inside the Beltway and beyond with stark visuals of the 123-year-old building reduced to rubble amid plumes of dust. That prompted a rapid response from the White House, which has argued that the president was transparent about the size and scope of the project from the beginning.
“I haven’t been transparent? Really?” Trump said in the Oval Office on Wednesday, sitting in front of a scale model of the ballroom. “I’ve shown this to everybody that would listen.”
But even as Trump has repeatedly talked about building a new ballroom, the norms guiding the construction process appear to have fallen by the wayside.
A rigorous three-part process typically plays out after the National Park Service submits a plan for new construction at the White House. The 12-member National Capital Planning Commission — which oversees federal building construction and includes three presidential appointees — then ensures the project is “in compliance with environmental laws, historical preservation laws and regulations,” said L. Preston Bryant Jr., who chaired the NCPC for nine years beginning under President Barack Obama and continuing halfway through the first Trump administration.
“Normally, you would go through the process of early consultation, conceptual review, preliminary review and final approval well before you stick a shovel in the ground, much less start demolishing something like a third of the White House,” Bryant told MSNBC. “And this whole process could take a year.”
“Normally, you would go through the process of early consultation, conceptual review, preliminary review and final approval well before you stick a shovel in the ground, much less start demolishing something like a third of the White House,” Bryant said.
This week’s demolition began without any plan being submitted to the NCPC. An administration official told MSNBC that construction plans “have not yet been submitted,” but that they will be at the “appropriate time.”
Asked Thursday whether the president can tear down anything he wants without oversight, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the law was on Trump’s side.
“When it comes to Phase 1 of this project, the tearing down of the current East Wing structure, a submission is not required legally for that,” Leavitt told reporters. “Only for vertical construction will a submission be required.”
Leavitt said the White House would provide the legal opinion she referenced during the briefing, but the White House did not respond to questions from MSNBC requesting it. Leavitt dismissed questions about whether the administration was following proper procedures for the project, arguing that the president is simply updating the White House like other presidents before him.
The Trump administration has also not consulted with the Commission of Fine Arts, according to a source familiar with the White House’s outreach — though Trump tapped one of its former members, James C. McCrery II, as the ballroom’s architect.
Since its formation by Congress in 1910, the commission has taken an active role in consulting over how to renovate federal buildings and public spaces so they effectively fit together as part of the broader landscape of the nation’s capital. Since Trump’s inauguration in January, four of the board members’ terms have expired, but the White House has not yet nominated individuals to fill the posts.
Prior to the leveling of the East Wing, members of the White House Historical Association were welcomed to the complex to help preserve “East Wing history through a comprehensive digital scanning project and photography to create an historic record,” said Jessica Fredericks, a spokesperson for the association. Fredericks added that “historic artifacts from the East Wing” were “preserved and stored” as well.
The association did not provide details on whether the White House sought its advice on the replacement of the East Wing and the plans for the new build.
A growing furor
The White House has aggressively pushed back on criticism that it misled the public about the size and scope of the construction project, pointing to renderings released in July that showed a completely changed East Wing and colonnade structure.
Over the summer, President Trump said that the project wouldn’t “interfere with the current building,” specifying that “it’ll be near it, but not touching it.”
This week, the president suggested his view had changed. “In order to do it properly, we had to take down the existing structure,” he said.
On Thursday, Trump said he’d raised more than $350 million for his ballroom. According to National Park Service guidelines, the government agency is to vet all individual and nonprofit donations of more than $1 million and any donation from a corporation that exceeds $500,000. At the time of publication, the Trust did not respond to questions about whether the donations are charitable deductions or whether the Trust is following federal guidelines regarding donations.
MSNBC has requested figures from the National Park Service and the Trust for the National Mall on the amounts donated to the project — information the administration has not publicly provided.
— Soorin Kim and Simone Perez contributed reporting.
