Acting AG Blanche uses White House shooting to bolster case for ballroom security project

A day after a gunman opened fire near the White House and was killed by Secret Service officers, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche filed a federal court document arguing the attack proves the president needs the controversial $400 million ballroom now under construction on the East Wing grounds.

The shooting occurred just after 6 p.m. EDT on Saturday at the corner of 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, steps from the executive mansion, when 21-year-old Nasire Best pulled a weapon from his bag and began firing. Secret Service officers returned fire and struck Best, who died at a hospital. One bystander was also hit. No officers were injured. President Trump was inside the White House at the time but was not impacted.

By Sunday, Blanche had turned the incident into a legal argument. In a filing responding to a lawsuit brought by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which seeks to block the ballroom's construction, the acting attorney general called the shooting a "second attempted assassination" on Trump "within a single month" and said it "underscores the critical need for top level, state of the art security at the White House, including the Ballroom."

A filing built on fresh gunfire

Blanche, who took over as acting AG after Trump fired Pam Bondi, did not hedge. He described Best as an "armed assassin" who opened fire "in the exact direction of the White House" and laid out the security features already being built into the East Wing project.

His filing detailed those features in plain terms:

"The under construction East Wing Project, which is on time and under budget, includes state of the art security features to repel all attacks against the President, his family, his staff, and esteemed visitors. These include a heavy steel, drone proof roof, missile resistant and drone proof columns, bullet, ballistic, and blast proof glass, Military grade venting for air conditioning and heating, and much more."

The filing argued that the president must be able to "perform his constitutional duties in a safe and heavily secured facility." That framing is no accident. It positions the ballroom not as a luxury addition but as a security necessity, one that the National Trust's lawsuit threatens to delay or dismantle.

Crews demolished the East Wing in October to make way for the project, which Trump has consistently said would be funded mostly through private donors. But the full picture of that funding, donor names, amounts pledged, commitments secured, remains unclear.

Third shooting near Trump in a month

Saturday's attack was not an isolated event. It marked the third gunfire incident near Trump in roughly a month, as Just The News reported. Best had previous encounters with the Secret Service and, according to that outlet, suffered from mental health issues. AP News reported that Best was arrested in July 2025 for attempting to enter a White House checkpoint without authorization and had a bench warrant issued for noncompliance.

Authorities have not said publicly whether Best had any political motivation for the attack.

The prior incident Blanche referenced, the one he counted as the first assassination attempt within the month, involved 31-year-old Cole Allen, who exchanged gunfire with Secret Service officers at the hotel where Trump was attending the White House Correspondents' Association dinner. Allen was indicted earlier this month by a federal grand jury on charges of attempting to assassinate the president, along with firearms violations. He pleaded not guilty to four federal charges.

That Trump has faced repeated security threats is not in dispute. What Blanche is doing is connecting those threats directly to a construction project that has drawn legal challenge and political friction, and doing so in a courtroom filing, not a press release.

The funding fight behind the construction

The ballroom project has been contentious from the start. The National Trust for Historic Preservation filed suit late last year to block it, and the legal battle has run alongside a parallel fight on Capitol Hill.

After the WHCA dinner shooting, a group of Senate Republicans introduced legislation to provide $1 billion in congressional security funding for the project. But not all GOP members were on board, and the effort hit a wall when Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled earlier this month that the funds could not be included in the budget reconciliation package. That ruling prompted Trump to push for MacDonough's ouster.

The parliamentarian's decision left the $1 billion proposal without a clear legislative vehicle, which makes the court case even more important. If the National Trust prevails, the project could be halted regardless of funding. Blanche's filing is an attempt to make sure the judiciary sees the security stakes in real time, with fresh bullet casings still being catalogued blocks from the White House.

Secret Service Director Sean Curran wrote on social media Sunday that the agency is "hopeful" the injured bystander "will make a full recovery." Secret Service Chief of Communications Anthony Guglielmi confirmed that the incident did not impact any "protectees." Newsmax reported that the situation was resolved with no law enforcement personnel injured.

Security versus preservation

The legal question at the heart of the lawsuit is whether the ballroom project violates historic preservation requirements. The National Trust's position treats the White House grounds as a protected site where major construction must clear specific legal hurdles.

Blanche's position, now sharpened by two shooting incidents in rapid succession, treats those hurdles as obstacles to protecting a sitting president. The filing does not address the preservation arguments in detail, it drives home a single point: the president's life is at risk, and the ballroom's security features are designed to address that risk.

Whether a federal judge finds that argument persuasive will depend on the legal standards governing historic preservation claims, not on the emotional weight of a shooting. But Blanche is clearly betting that the facts on the ground, a dead gunman, an injured bystander, a president who has survived multiple nearby attacks, will make it harder for any court to side with the preservationists.

The administration has framed the ballroom project as a matter of presidential safety from the beginning. Saturday's shooting gave Blanche a way to make that case with fresh urgency in a courtroom where urgency matters.

Trump himself has taken the security threats seriously enough to keep a contingency letter for Vice President Vance in the Resolute Desk in the event of his death, a detail that puts the ballroom debate in a grimmer light.

Open questions

Several things remain unknown. Investigators have not disclosed whether Best had a political motive. The specific status of the National Trust lawsuit, whether a hearing is scheduled, whether summary judgment has been filed, is not public. The private donor funding Trump has touted for the project lacks named donors or confirmed commitments. And Cole Allen's trial date and detention status remain unclear.

What is clear is that the acting attorney general saw an opening and took it. Two shootings near a sitting president in a single month is not normal. Blanche is making sure the court knows it.

When bullets keep landing near the White House, the people arguing against reinforcing it have a harder case to make, and they should.