The Trump administration told the Supreme Court that construction on President Donald Trump's much-demanded White House ballroom was already "65 percent finished," but a new Washington Post analysis of government documents indicates the actual figure is far lower.

By the White House's own standard for measuring the project's progress — established in a confidential agreement with contractor Clark Construction — the work on the controversial project was far less complete, the Post reports.

The agreement, finalized before Clark began demolition in October 2025, stipulates that payments to the contractor be proportional to the amount of work completed, and that work cannot begin until the government approves spending for it. On that basis, if 65 percent of the work had been done, the government should already have paid 65 percent of the project's total cost.

Publicly available appropriations data tell a different story. As of the end of July, the White House budget office had approved $144 million in spending from an account used to pay for the East Wing and other White House projects. Even if that entire amount went to the East Wing, it would amount to only about 24 percent of the $600 million estimated construction cost that Clark provided to the White House in March.

The administration's own figures point to a similar discrepancy. In the same mid-August court filing in which it claimed 65 percent of the project was done, the administration said it had already spent "around $200 million." Based on the $600 million budget estimate, spending $200 million would mean the work is just 33 percent complete.

"You really want to understand why there's such a big gap there," said Carl Elefante, a retired D.C.-area architect and former president of the American Institute of Architects, who called the government's completion-percentage claim "doubtful."

The 65 percent claim was made in a sworn declaration by Joshua Fisher, director for White House Management and Administration, who is overseeing the construction project. Fisher did not explain how the percentage was calculated, but stated, "Work has progressed too far to go back to the drawing board."

Fisher's declaration came as the administration asked the Supreme Court to allow work on the ballroom to continue after lower courts ruled that the project was probably illegal without congressional approval and that construction must stop. The underlying dispute centers on the Constitution's requirement that federal spending be authorized by Congress through appropriations; the lower courts found the administration had not obtained such approval for the project. The administration argued in part that halting work while the courts weighed the merits of the case brought by the National Trust for Historic Preservation would cause "chaos in service of nothing," because the project had already progressed "beyond the point of judicial intervention." The completion percentage is central to that argument: the further along the construction, the stronger the administration's claim that stopping it would waste work already performed.

Measured by expected duration, the project is about 30 percent complete, according to the Post's calculations based on the administration's timeline. Fisher said in his declaration that construction began in late October 2025 and is expected to be finished in August 2028, putting the work 10 months into a 34-month construction schedule.

Trump is reportedly still "tinkering around" with details of the ballroom. Some of those changes involve the exterior: renderings the administration shared with the Supreme Court this month included a new feature Trump personally selected — golden seals on the ballroom's exterior — as well as the restoration of a staircase that had appeared in earlier plans before being abandoned.

The Supreme Court's decision on whether construction may continue while the litigation proceeds remains pending.

Source: Washington Post via Alternet