President Donald Trump's solicitor general argued a preservationist suing to block the White House ballroom has no more valid a legal claim than doctors traumatized by "witnessing abortions."
Solicitor General D. John Sauer made that argument Wednesday in a reply brief filed at the Supreme Court, asking the justices to let construction continue while the administration appeals a court order blocking the project.
The brief also compared the preservationist's injury to the disgust felt by a descendant of slaves viewing Confederate memorials — framing both as too abstract to count as a legal harm.
The preservationist at the center of the case is architectural historian Alison Hoagland, a member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, who says she walks near the White House about once a month and would be harmed by the ballroom's appearance, the brief said.
Hoagland's claim is the foundation of the lawsuit that produced a court order blocking above-ground construction on the $400 million project.
"Hoagland's subjective displeasure about the visual message the finished Project will supposedly send is the opposite of a concrete, particularized injury," the brief said.
"That injury, which exists entirely within Hoagland's mind, is no more cognizable than doctors' profound visual distress at witnessing abortions while at work, or a descendant of slaves feeling disgust from seeing Confederate memorials," the brief said.
Sauer also dismissed the argument that Hoagland's harm is permanent, writing that the permanence does not make her injury any less trivial.
"The effects of naval exercises in Winter were, after all, quite permanent for the whales," the brief said, citing a Supreme Court case that denied an environmental group's challenge to military drills.
Construction on the project is 65% complete, the brief said, and the D.C. Circuit ruled this month that the administration lacked congressional authority to build it, with the injunction blocking above-ground work set to take effect Friday, August 22, absent Supreme Court intervention.
Continuing construction is "urgent" to protect the "continuity of the Presidency," the brief said, citing declarations from senior national security officials.
The brief warned the injunction would leave "an unstable, unfinished 70-foot-tall structure on White House grounds, putting the complex at risk and thwarting Secret Service protection."
A protracted delay would "jeopardize everything" built to date, which would be "extremely dangerous," the brief said.