トランプ政権司法省、ホワイトハウスのボールルーム建設を最高裁で擁護 「中絶を目撃すること」や奴隷制にも言及
重要ポイント
- •ジョン・サウアー法務長官は水曜日、最高裁に反論書を提出し、政権が建設差し止め命令を争う間もホワイトハウス・ボールルームの工事継続を認めるよう求めた。
- •反論書は、保存運動家アリソン・ホーグランド氏の建物外観に関する主張は法的損害としては抽象的すぎるとし、中絶を目撃する医師の苦痛や南軍記念碑を見る奴隷の子孫の嫌悪感になぞらえた。
- •D.C.巡回控訴裁判所は今月、政権にこの4億ドル規模の計画を建設する議会権限がなかったと判断し、上部構造の工事を止める差し止め命令は最高裁が介入しない限り8月22日金曜日に発効する。
- •工事は65%完了しており、政権は差し止め命令がホワイトハウス敷地内に不安定な高さ70フィートの未完成構造物を残し、施設を危険にさらし、シークレットサービスの警護を妨げると警告した。
- •政権は、工事継続は大統領職の継続性を守るために緊急だとしている。
President Donald Trump's solicitor general argued that a preservationist seeking 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 with the Supreme Court, asking the justices to allow construction to continue while the administration appeals a court order blocking the project.
The filing comes as the ballroom fight moves into a broader question of whether construction can continue while the underlying legal dispute is still being reviewed, a stage that often determines whether a project is finished, altered, or stopped before the courts reach a final answer.
The brief also compared the preservationist's alleged injury to the disgust felt by a descendant of slaves viewing Confederate memorials, portraying both as too abstract to qualify 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, according to the brief.
Hoagland's claim is the basis of the lawsuit that led to 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 rejected the argument that Hoagland's harm is permanent, writing that permanence does not make the 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.
The brief said construction on the project is 65% complete. It also noted that the D.C. Circuit ruled this month that the administration lacked congressional authority to build it, and that the injunction blocking above-ground work is set to take effect Friday, August 22, unless the Supreme Court intervenes.
Continuing construction is "urgent" to protect the "continuity of the Presidency," the brief said, citing declarations from senior national security officials.
The administration warned that 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."
It added that a prolonged delay would "jeopardize everything" built so far and would be "extremely dangerous."
