DoJ pressures group to drop lawsuit against Trump’s ballroom after gala shooting

The US Department of J (DoJ) has used the weekend shooting in Washington DC to pressure a preservation group to drop a lawsuit seeking to halt the construction of Donald Trump’s White House ballroom. Several Trump administration officials, including the president, seized on the incident at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner to advance their case for the completion of the controversial $400m project, for which the White House’s East Wing was suddenly demolished, arguing the new ballroom was needed as a “safe space”. On Sunday night, Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, posted on social media a letter to lawyers representing the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) calling the trust’s lawsuit “frivolous”. It demanded that the organization voluntarily withdraw it or face a new dismissal motion from the Department of Justice (DoJ). “Put simply, your lawsuit puts the lives of the President, his family, and staff at grave risk,” the letter, signed by Brett Shumate, assistant attorney general of the justice department’s civil division, said. …