>>179559
cont...
Leon had blocked the National Trust's earlier bid to block the ballroom's construction, saying that version of the suit was based on a “ragtag group of theories” that didn’t “bring the necessary cause of action to test the statutory authority” of the president to pursue the project with private funding and outside of Congress’ approval. The group then filed an amended suit, focusing on a claim that Trump had exceeded his authority. Leon agreed but said the "good news" for the fate of the project is it is "not too late for Congress to authorize the continued construction of the ballroom project. The President may at any time go to Congress to obtain express authority to construct a ballroom and to do so with private funds." That way, Leon wrote, Congress will retain "its authority over the nation’s property and its oversight over the Government’s spending" and the National Trust’s interests "in a constitutional and lawful process will be vindicated. And the American people will benefit from the branches of Government exercising their constitutionally prescribed roles. Not a bad outcome, that!"
Leon, who was appointed in 2002, is well-known for his use of exclamation marks. He used 18 of them in the ballroom ruling — more than the 14 that appeared in his opinion in February finding that the Trump administration had “trampled” on Sen. Mark Kelly’s First Amendment rights when the Defense Department targeted Kelly, D-Ariz., over a social media video, but less than the 26 he used in an opinion last year blocking Trump’s executive order targeting the law firm WilmerHale.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/federal-judge-temporarily-blocks-demolition-white-house-trumps-ballroo-rcna266095