During a court hearing tied to legal challenges over construction of President Donald Trump’s planned White House ballroom, Justice Department attorneys argue that the president would face no meaningful legal barrier to using broad authority to demolish the Statue of Liberty. Multiple outlets report that the issue arises after a judge asks whether the president could “bulldoze” the landmark and avoid legal challenges if he chose to do so.
According to the accounts, DOJ lawyer Yaakov Roth responds that the president could decide to bulldoze the Statue of Liberty the next day and that no one would be able to stop him. The outlets frame this exchange as part of a broader DOJ argument for expansive presidential powers, described in one report as seeking authority that is difficult or impossible to review through legal mechanisms.
The articles emphasize that the exchange occurred while litigating the legality of the ballroom project, with the judge’s question using the Statue of Liberty as a hypothetical example to test the scope of the government’s position. None of the reports indicate the DOJ’s argument has been accepted by the court; the reporting focuses on what the attorneys asserted during the hearing.
