President Signs Order Protecting His Renovations From Future Renovations

WASHINGTON — The president has finished renovating the Oval Office. Now nobody else is allowed to.

President Donald Trump signed a proclamation Thursday establishing the Oval Office National Monument, which covers the Oval Office and the Cabinet Room. It was his first official act after his party lost the midterm elections on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported. He had spent the day before signing the final beam of his ballroom, which stands where the East Wing used to.

“It will not be allowed to be touched by anybody, destroyed, ripped down by stupid people, in order to build something in a slightly different shape,” the president said, according to the AP.

This reporter has covered eleven administrations. Every one of them has said something like that about the last guy’s furniture. This is the first to say it about his own, in advance, in writing.

What the document says

The proclamation hands the room to the Interior secretary. It requires “documentation, review, and consideration of alternatives” before anyone can “substantially alter or demolish the monument.” It also says nothing in it restricts “the President’s authority to redecorate the monument, select furnishings, or make ordinary operational and security modifications.”

So the current president may redecorate. A future president may redecorate. A future president may not demolish. That rule has been in effect for about a week. The East Wing would like a word.

The president went further out loud than on paper. He said any major change would have to go back to Congress. The AP noted that requirement does not appear in the document’s text. “If anybody ever decides to come and start knocking down walls, you call me wherever I may be,” he said, “and I’ll come back here and I’ll make sure it never happens.”

A red cap reading “VETO” sat on the Resolute Desk during the signing, the AP reported. It was the only item in the room with a clear legislative position.

Meanwhile, across the river

The same Thursday, the National Capital Planning Commission gave final approval to the president’s arch. It is to stand 250 feet tall in Memorial Circle, between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, topped with gold statues and an eternal flame, NPR reported. Within moments of that late-night vote, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan blocked construction for two weeks.

One of the main arguments against the arch is that building it requires congressional approval, NPR reported. The administration has not sought any. It argues instead that the arch is authorized by a law from roughly a century ago that approved two columns at the same spot. The columns were never built. Judge Chutkan wrote last week that “merely to state this argument is to reveal its flaws.”

To review the week’s legal theory. An oval room cannot become a square room without Congress. A 250-foot gilded arch can go up without Congress, because Congress once said yes to two columns nobody built.

“It’s a very consistent position,” said a senior official who requested anonymity because he was embarrassed. “Congress is required for things we have already finished. Things we have not finished are covered by the columns.”

The new plaintiffs

On Tuesday, nine members of the Kennedy family asked to join the lawsuit, NPR reported. They are children of Robert F. and Ethel Kennedy and a son of Edward M. Kennedy, all buried at Arlington. Their filing says the arch would block views of the family’s gravesites and the John F. Kennedy Eternal Flame. It cites a Washington Post analysis finding the arch would shade the JFK memorial on 50 days a year.

They join Vietnam veterans, an architectural historian and the governments of the District and Virginia, who were already in court. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did not join his siblings in suing his own administration.

White House spokesman Davis Ingle told NPR it was “unfortunate” that some Kennedys had joined, because the project “is intended to honor our heroes who rest in Arlington Cemetery.”

This reporter asked his best source, a man he calls Deep Throat Lozenge, how the White House squares the two projects. Lozenge said they are governed by the same principle. “Nothing gets built without careful review,” he said, “unless he is the one building it. And nothing gets torn down without Congress, unless he is the one tearing it down.”

Where this leaves us

Democrats take control of Congress in January. The president has the veto, and a hat that says so. The judge has the arch for at least another week. The Interior secretary has the Oval Office.

This reporter has a desk by a window that does not open. He has asked the building manager about getting it fixed for nine years. On Thursday he filed a request to have the window declared a national monument instead. That way, he figures, someone will at least have to document why it stays shut.