"Trump is going to get his ballroom — even if courts conclude it’s illegal."

Said lawprof Leah Litman, quoted by Adam Liptak in "Trump’s 'Lightning Speed' Outpaces the Courts/In his breakneck construction of a grand ballroom and in many other initiatives, critics say, the president has tried to outrun judicial review" (NYT gift link).

When the ballroom case was argued before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in June, Judge Patricia A. Millett asked... If the government were to move very quickly to bulldoze the Statue of Liberty... was it true that “nothing can be done” by the courts? 

Yaakov Roth, a Justice Department lawyer, did not try to duck the question. “I think that’s right, yes,” he said.... 

When the case reached the Supreme Court last month, the challengers warned the justices that Mr. Trump had “decided to try to outrun judicial review.” In response, Solicitor General D. John Sauer did not exactly deny the charge. He crowed that a 250-person crew had been working 20 hours a day, seven days a week, and that the project, which he said included key security upgrades for the White House, had passed the point of no return....

It's in the structure of things that the Executive has speed as a tool. Remember when Justice Robert Jackson quoted Napoleon — "The tools belong to the man who can use them"?

I see I have a tag "Trumpian speediness." I've used it twice before today:

May 24, 2024, I quoted Trump: "I was doing great, I was sort of like a hot guy. I was hot as a pistol. I think I’m hotter than I am now and I became president. I asked somebody, was I hotter before or hotter now. I don’t know… You have to always keep moving forward. And when it’s your time you’ve got to know it’s your time...." And I wrote: "New York is his town, and — telling stories about building in the city — he conveyed real love for the place. He wanted the people of his favorite city to know he cares and he can rebuild things for them — quickly — like he rebuilt the Wollman skating rink." 

January 25, 2025, after the big fires, Trump was talking to L.A. Mayor Karen Bass: "You have emergency powers just like I do, and I'm exercising my emergency powers. You have to exercise them.... You have a very powerful emergency power and you can do everything within 24 hours." I wrote: "Trump pictures the homeowners rushing in grabbing armloads of debris and heaving it into dumpsters overnight. But don't you need contractors to deliver and pick up those dumpsters? And won't some of those homeowners... injure themselves jumping about in the wreckage? What is the big hurry? But Bass comes across as weak and afraid to take action, while Trump seems commanding and sanguine, ready to unleash the power of the individual citizens who are raring to get in there and transform the landscape overnight. You can do everything within 24 hours."

ADDED: Slowness is also a tool. Courts and legislatures can be used to slow things down, even where they have no power or will to act. Listen to Liptak: "Should Democrats capture one or both chambers of Congress in the coming election, they may be able to challenge the project in court or through legislation." That's a practical plan to use slowness to achieve the end he seems to favor. Slow things down for 2 more years and Trump will finally be gone. Trump can see that, and he's using his power of speed to get what he wants.