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white house
Report Details Massive Federal Contracts, Enforcement Actions Against Trump's Ballroom Donors
"These are not random donations," said Public Citizen. "It's a clear-as-day effort to kiss up to the Trump administration."
Nov 03, 2025
As President Donald Trump has embarked on the $300 million demolition of the East Wing of the White House—a project he insists has been "longed for" for more than a century—he has openly said that he and "some of [his] friends" are paying for the ballroom he is building.
But an analysis on Monday detailed just how "massive, inescapable, and irremediable" the donors' conflicts of interest are, as more than a dozen of the presidents' "friends" have major government contracts and are facing federal enforcement actions.
The White House has denied that corporate donors to Trump's ballroom construction project have any conflicts of interest, but Public Citizen found that 16 out of 24 publicly disclosed contributors—including three identified by CBS News but not by the White House—have government contracts.
The companies, including Amazon, Google, Lockheed Martin, and Palantir Technologies, have received $279 billion in government contracts over the last five years and nearly $43 billion in the last year. Lockheed is by far the biggest recipient, having received $191 billion in defense contracts over the last five years. The amount the companies have each donated to the ballroom construction has not been disclosed, but Lockheed spent more than $76 million in political donations from 2021-25.
The money the corporations have spent to build Trump's ballroom, said Public Citizen, "are not random donations. It's a clear-as-day effort to kiss up to the Trump administration."
Lockheed is among at least 14 ballroom contributors that are facing federal enforcement actions, including labor rights cases, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement, and antitrust actions.
The National Labor Relations Board has before it cases alleging unfair labor practices by Lockheed as well as Google and Amazon.
The big tech firm Nvidia, another donor, has previously been accused of entering into a "quid pro quo" arrangement with the White House when it said it would give 15% of its revenue from exports to China directly to the Trump administration. The company has spent more than $6 million on political donations since 2021 and more than $4 million on lobbying, and faces a Department of Justice antitrust investigation into whether it abused its market dominance in artificial intelligence computer chips.
While Trump has sought to portray the ballroom fundraising drive as one in which his wealthy "friends" have simply joined the effort to beautify a cherished public building, Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman said the companies are not acting "out of a sense of civic pride."
"They have massive interests before the federal government and they undoubtedly hope to curry favor with, and receive favorable treatment from, the Trump administration," said Weissman. "Millions to fund Trump’s architectural whims are nothing compared to the billions at stake in procurement, regulatory, and enforcement decisions."
In total, the 24 companies identified as ballroom donors spent more than $960 million in lobbying and political contributions in the last election cycle and $1.6 billion over the last five years.
Weissman said the companies' contributions to the president's pet project amount to corporate America "paying tribute" to the White House in order to stave off unfavorable labor rights and antitrust rulings, energy and financial regulations, and SEC actions and oversight, like an investigation into the cryptocurrency firm Gemini over alleged sales of unregistered securities.
"This is more than everyday corporate influence seeking. Paying tribute is a mark of authoritarianism and in making these payments, these corporations are aiding Trump’s authoritarian project," said Weissman. "They should withdraw their contributions.”
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With Food Aid Suspended for Millions of Families, Trump Brags of 'Statuary Marble' Bathroom Makeover
"He’s a psychopath, humanly incapable of caring about anyone or anything but himself," one critic said of Trump.
Oct 31, 2025
As millions of families across the US are about to lose their access to food aid over the weekend, President Donald Trump on Friday decided to show off photos of a White House bathroom that he boasted had been refurbished in "highly polished, statuary marble."
Trump posted photos of the bathroom on his Truth Social platform, and he explained that he decided to remodel it because he was dissatisfied with the "art deco green tile style" that had been implemented during a previous renovation, which he described as "totally inappropriate for the Lincoln Era."
"I did it in black and white polished Statuary marble," Trump continued. "This was very appropriate for the time of Abraham Lincoln and, in fact, could be the marble that was originally there!"
Trump's critics were quick to pan the remodeled bathroom, especially since it came at a time when Americans are suffering from numerous policies the president and the Republican Party are enacting, including tariffs that are raising the cost of food and clothing; expiring subsidies for Americans who buy health insurance through Affordable Care Act exchanges; and cuts to Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP) programs in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
"Sure, you might not be able to eat or go to the doctor, but check out how nice Trump's new marble shitter is," remarked independent journalist Aaron Rupar on Bluesky.
Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman who has become a critic of Trump, ripped the president for displaying such tone deafness in the middle of a federal government shutdown.
"Government still shutdown, Americans not getting paid, food assistance for low-income families and children about to be cut off, and this is what he cares about," he wrote on X. "He’s a psychopath, humanly incapable of caring about anyone or anything but himself."
Don Moynihan, a political scientist at the University of Michigan, expressed extreme skepticism that the White House bathroom during Abraham Lincoln's tenure was decked out in marble and gold.
"Fact check based on no research but with a high degree of confidence: This is not the marble that was originally in the Lincoln Bedroom," he wrote. "It is more likely to the be retrieved from a Trump casino before it was demolished."
Fashion critic Derek Guy, meanwhile, mostly left politics out of his criticisms of the remodeled bathroom, instead simply observing that "White House renovations are currently being spearheaded by someone with famously bad interior design taste."
Earlier this month, Trump sparked outrage when he demolished the entire East Wing of the White House to make way for a massive White House ballroom financed by donations from some of America’s wealthiest corporations—including several with government contracts and interests in deregulation—such as Apple, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Meta, Google, Amazon, and Palantir.
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Before the Dust Settles: A Strategy for Reclaiming the People's House
We must transform this destruction into democracy's gain: proof that citizens armed with law and persistence can check executive excess.
Oct 30, 2025
On a cold October morning, heavy equipment commenced destruction of the 123-year-old East Wing of the White House. In place of rooms where presidents rehearsed the words that would steady the nation and First Ladies wrote to grieving families, we are offered glass and spectacle, a ballroom scaled to diminish the original house, a monument to appetite where once stood service. This is not modernization. This is erasure.
The destruction matters because process matters, and process was murdered alongside memory. The 1942 shell that sheltered the nation's continuity in crisis, the offices where Rosalynn Carter pioneered the modern First Lady's role, the theater where words found their gravity before facing the nation: all of it stripped away while the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts were reduced to bystanders. What should have triggered months of review, public hearings, and preservation consultation instead became fait accompli, rubble before remedy, demolition before deliberation. When a democracy allows its procedures to be treated as suggestions, it teaches citizens that power makes its own permissions.
Robert Hutchins warned that democracy dies not from ambush but from "apathy, indifference, and undernourishment." We refuse all three. Citizens have stopped juggernauts before. Echo Park Dam died when Americans decided that national parks were inviolate, forcing Congress to abandon a project already funded and designed. Storm King Mountain survived when fishermen and debutantes united to establish that citizens have standing to defend public resources in court. The Lower Manhattan Expressway never broke ground because Jane Jacobs and her neighbors proved that affected communities must be heard before concrete pours. Keystone XL collapsed after a decade of permit fights raised costs beyond what investors would bear. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline terminated when legal challenges made risk exceed reward. Each victory followed a pattern: Meticulous documentation met sustained pressure met escalating costs met political exposure met capitulation. None relied on outrage alone. All transformed fury into filing systems.
The pattern is clear: Documentation plus pressure plus cost plus exposure equals capitulation. But pattern without purpose is merely mimicry. We study these victories not to copy their tactics but to extract their essence: how citizen movements transform government overreach into government retreat. The East Wing lies in rubble, yes, but the larger assault is on process itself, on the idea that democracy requires permission before power acts. Our response must therefore be more than obstruction. It must be construction: building a legal record, a political cost, and a civic precedent that makes this demolition democracy's gain. What follows is not a lamentation but a blueprint, drawn from democracy's past victories and aimed at preservation's future protection.
The house at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue belongs to the people, not to any temporary occupant.
Our objectives cascade from immediate to transformative. First, we halt further destruction through emergency legal action while building an administrative record that compels review. Second, we force full compliance with preservation law, environmental standards, and safety regulations, making each day more expensive than planners imagined. Third, we secure either significant design modifications, meaningful mitigation, or project abandonment, depending on what facts and pressure produce. Fourth, we establish precedents that close the loopholes exploited here, ensuring no future administration can demolish first and explain later. Finally, we transform this destruction into democracy's gain: proof that citizens armed with law and persistence can check executive excess, a template for resistance that travels beyond preservation to every domain where power overreaches. These are not wishes. These are waypoints.
The coalition capable of these transformations already exists in pieces waiting for assembly. Preservation groups have standing under the National Historic Preservation Act when consultation was skipped. Environmental organizations can sue under the National Environmental Policy Act when impacts were ignored. Labor unions can file complaints when workers face exposure to asbestos and other unsafe conditions. Transparency advocates can litigate under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) when records are withheld. Financial accountability groups can pressure investors and insurers as risks rise. Democracy organizations can demand hearings when process is violated. Each group brings expertise, each expertise brings leverage, and leverage compounds when coordinated.
We stand on foundations built by democracy's defenders. The American Civil Liberties Union teaches us to build records that survive judicial scrutiny. Democracy Docket shows how emergency motions can freeze bulldozers. The Brennan Center demonstrates how governance law creates obligations that cannot be waived. Public Citizen proves that regulatory enforcement can accomplish what courts cannot. We are not inventing tactics. We are applying proven methods to fresh outrage.
Implementation begins with paper because paper creates predicates for everything that follows. File FOIA requests at the White House, General Services Administration, National Capital Planning Commission, Commission of Fine Arts, and Secret Service for permits, plans, correspondence, and security assessments. Submit complaints to the District of Columbia Department of Energy and Environment for dust, diesel, and runoff violations. Report safety violations to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for fall protection, egress, and hazard communication failures. Demand consultation records from the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and the State Historic Preservation offiecer. Each filing creates a clock, each clock creates a deadline, and deadlines create leverage when authorities must respond or face their own legal exposure. Paper creates the predicate. Money creates the pressure.
Money moves when risk rises, yet the administration hides its financial trail behind claims of private funding and executive privilege. This opacity itself violates federal transparency requirements and becomes our first leverage point. The absence of public contracts, disclosed budgets, and identified funders tells its own story of irregular process. We make risk visible through investigation and exposure. Insurance underwriters for any contractors we identify need documentation of violations gathered through citizen photography, FOIA responses, and whistleblower accounts.
Where specific banks and bonds remain hidden, we target the sector: Construction lenders learn their exposure through public campaigns, surety companies receive notices about federal project requirements, and institutional investors in major construction firms face shareholder resolutions about reputational risk. The secrecy itself becomes the story. Each hidden detail uncovered through investigation gains power precisely because it was concealed. The goal is not harassment but education: ensuring every potential enabler understands that anonymity provides no immunity from liability.
While we work the paper trail and money trail, we must also work the public eye. Visibility amplifies pressure because sunshine remains democracy's best disinfectant. The administration's refusal to allow normal inspections becomes evidence itself. We create our own documentation: photographs with timestamps, videos with metadata, satellite images showing changes, expert affidavits analyzing violations, sworn statements from witnesses. The absence of official oversight makes citizen documentation more powerful, not less. Publish through multiple channels: traditional media for credibility, social media for virality, specialized press for expertise, international outlets for shame. Create narrative continuity: daily violation updates, weekly revelations about hidden funding, monthly progress toward our transparent objectives while theirs remain concealed. Name names carefully but consistently: contractors who continue work, officials who skip process, donors who write checks. Build an archive that becomes the foundation for hearings, litigation, and history. Facts without dissemination die in filing cabinets. Facts with wings become forces.
Democracy's true foundation lies not in buildings but in boundaries that even presidents cannot cross.
Political oversight emerges when documentation meets constituent pressure meets media coverage meets committee jurisdiction. Representatives need specific asks: Democrats on House Oversight should immediately schedule hearings with subpoena power, any member can request Government Accountability Office investigations, senators can place holds on related nominations until answers arrive. Committees need road maps: House Oversight for process violations, Natural Resources for preservation failures, Transportation and Infrastructure for construction oversight, Appropriations for funding questions. Witnesses need assurances of protection: whistleblower attorneys, secure communications, documentation protocols, support networks. Hearings need preparation by committee staff working with preservation organizations, investigative journalists, and citizen groups who've gathered evidence. Politics responds to persistence more than passion. Three constituents calling weekly outweigh 300 signing once.
When documentation and political pressure converge, litigation becomes the hammer. The National Historic Preservation Act requires consultation that clearly did not occur. The National Environmental Policy Act mandates impact assessment that was skipped. The Federal Records Act prohibits destruction of documents that may have disappeared. The Administrative Procedure Act forbids arbitrary and capricious action, which demolition without review exemplifies. Standing exists for preservation groups, neighbors, historians, and arguably any citizen whose heritage was stolen. Remedies range from temporary restraining orders to permanent injunctions to damages to mandamus compelling proper process. Even unsuccessful suits surface documents through discovery, create delay through procedure, and impose costs through defense. The courthouse is not the only venue, but in this era of executive overreach, it often proves the most powerful.
Timeline becomes strategy when pressure synchronizes with opportunity. Phase One establishes the record through mass FOIA filing, safety and environmental complaints, and initial contractor contacts. Phase Two analyzes responses, files initial lawsuits, escalates investor pressure, and builds media narrative. Phase Three seeks preliminary injunctions, holds initial hearings, publishes major investigations, and assesses contractor defections. Phase Four maintains indefinite pressure: enforcing victories, codifying new protections, and preparing for the next assault. Each phase documents every violation and establishes triggers for escalation or negotiation. Success might come quickly through an early injunction or slowly through accumulated costs. The plan adapts, but pressure never releases.
Victory has faces. Minimum victory: Full documentation enters the permanent record, creating evidence for future accountability and prevention. Moderate victory: Design modifications reduce harm, mitigation addresses damage, and public process governs remaining work. Maximum victory: the Project halts, redesign respects history, and those responsible face consequences. Transformative victory: New legislation closes loopholes, preservation becomes politically sacred, and citizens discover their power. Any victory beats surrender. Every victory builds toward the next. The measure is not whether we restore every stone but whether we establish that stones cannot be removed without permission.
This is how disasters become democratic gains. The house at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue belongs to the people, not to any temporary occupant. Memory is the mortgage we have never missed, the deed we will never surrender. When dawn brought rubble where history stood, it also brought clarity: A republic that allows process to be optional will soon find democracy optional too. We answer not with violence or vandalism but with the tools democracy provides: transparency that embarrasses, law that constrains, costs that accumulate, and politics that punish. Each violation documented today becomes evidence tomorrow. Each dollar spent on lawyers becomes unavailable for luxuries. Each day delayed is a day democracy wins.
Frederick Douglass knew that "power concedes nothing without a demand." We make that demand through every channel democracy provides. Let those who gamble with our inheritance learn what Echo Park Dam taught, what Storm King Mountain proved, what Keystone XL demonstrated: that citizens armed with facts and law and time can stop anything, that money fears exposure more than regulation, that even presidents must eventually answer to process. The reckoning follows, patient as gravity, certain as memory. Step by careful step, document by document, hearing by hearing, until democracy's antibodies overwhelm this infection. Until those who thought they could build on rubble discover they have built on sand. Until the next demolition crew thinks twice, thinks three times, and thinks better.
John Philpot Curran understood that "the condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance." That vigilance begins here, with this violation, with this response. Restore sequence. Restore sunlight. Restore the understanding that in a republic, the people's house requires the people's permission. Not for aesthetics. Not for nostalgia. For the principle that process precedes power, that memory matters more than monuments, that democracy's true foundation lies not in buildings but in boundaries that even presidents cannot cross. This is how we turn catastrophe into catalyst. This is how the resistance remembers how to resist. This is how democracy proves it deserves to survive.
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