Chief Justice John Roberts broke with his conservative colleagues in a Supreme Court decision Monday that allowed construction on the proposed White House ballroom to continue, saying the ruling upsets the separation of powers. Roberts…
Page A7From§Eachthe late evening edition — 31 August 2026
Supreme Court Allows White House Ballroom Construction the Chief Justice Calls Likely Unlawful
As it ran on the front
I wrote this down. Just a second... here it is. Four separate wire stories, same week, and they all say the same two things in different order. 'Supreme Court Allows White House Ballroom Construction.' And then, same ruling, same day: 'Chief Justice Calls It Likely Unlawful.' Now I read that twice because I figured I copied it wrong. I didn't.
I keep coming back to that one word. Unlawful. Not 'unclear.' Not 'under review.' Unlawful — with 'likely' stapled to the front of it like that's supposed to soften it. I got a nephew who does that. Tells his mother he's 'likely going to pay her back.' She's still waiting.…
…(cont) I tried something at home, just to understand it. I took the smoke detector off my kitchen ceiling — the one that's supposed to go off if something's on fire — and I asked my wife, would she keep cooking dinner if I told her it was 'likely dangerous' but I wasn't going to stop her. She looked at me like I'd lost it. Said the detector's the whole point. You don't get to keep it up there for decoration.
Here's what's in the record, plain as anything. The majority let the construction continue. One justice — the Chief, no less, head of the whole operation — writes a dissent that says, quote, 'no victory for separation of powers.' That's not me editorializing. That's on the page. So the branch of government whose entire job is to say what's lawful had a member say, on the record, that this wasn't. And the building goes up anyway.
I'm no lawyer. I just notice things. Like how 'likely unlawful' and 'allowed to proceed' are sitting right next to each other in the same document, and nobody at the table seems bothered by that but me.
So — excuse me, one more thing, before you go — when a court can call something likely unlawful and let it get built the same afternoon, what exactly does a ruling stop anymore?
“They didn't say it's legal, they said 'likely unlawful' and let the concrete truck through anyway. That's not a ruling, that's a permission slip with a warning label nobody has to read. Next time they tell you the rules matter, ask who's still pouring the foundation.”
“The Court didn't approve anything, it just declined to stop it while the facts get sorted out - that's due process working exactly as intended. Likely unlawful isn't unlawful, it's a phrase, lawyers use phrases. Did I just say due process means let them keep building? That's... actually that is what I said.”
The receipts
Lower-court rulings would have blocked construction of the 90,000-square-foot ballroom after finding that the Trump administration should have first sought approval from Congress.
Also, a principal helped save 900 children in Nepal. Here’s the latest at the end of Monday.
US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts recently let construction on President Donald Trump's White House ballroom continue in a temporary solo decision, but on Monday he sided with the three liberals against the five right-wingers who…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.