'I think that's right': DOJ lawyer agrees 'nothing can be done' if Trump suddenly bulldozes Statue of Liberty, just like East Wing

As a three-judge panel in Washington, D.C., peppered the Trump administration with questions about the White House ballroom, a DOJ lawyer argued that an architectural historian has no standing to sue — and neither would descendants of immigrants upset about the hypothetical sudden bulldozing of the Statue of Liberty.

President Donald Trump set the tone at the start of the week by ridiculing Alison Hoagland and the federal judge who found she had standing to take action even after the teardown of the East Wing of the White House.

And on the eve of oral argument, Trump again slammed Hoagland without naming her for blocking "desperately needed" national security measures.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Yaakov Roth kicked off arguments by stating that the National Trust for Historic Preservation can't sue based on Hoagland's "classic generalized grievance."

"It is simply that she thinks she will not like how it looks after the building is built," Roth said, describing Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Leon's injunction in the case as "legally indefensible and equitably inconceivable."

U.S. Circuit Judge Bradley Garcia, a Joe Biden appointee, turned to environmental cases to say the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has found standing when groups claimed an interest in "viewing the battlefield as it is." He asked Roth to come up with a distinction.

Roth said one difference is that Hoagland has herself to blame for her injury.

"Either it's going to be an incidental viewing, right, like I happen to be walking by, she says, you know, I'm going to a doctor's appointment, I'm going to an exhibition in the area, or it's going to be self-inflicted, you know, intentionally putting yourself in the position where you see this thing that you don't like, so I think those are those are distinctions," he answered.

"What she's really saying is there's this other thing that you're putting up that's going to sort of make me enjoy it less," Roth added.

U.S. Circuit Judge Patricia Millett, a Barack Obama appointee, took over from there.

"People have to walk a different way, change their route, look at the White House from only a certain vantage point, and if they wish to look at it from one they routinely do, or look at it from multiple vantage points, as people often want to do with special sites, that's not an injury?" Millett asked.

"So, your honor, two things again on that. Number one, she doesn't say that — " the DOJ started to say, before Millett said "I'm asking my question."

"I'll answer the legal question. I just want to say that's not what the declaration says here," Roth clarified.

Millett pressed some more.

"I mean, the whole thing, that whole side of the White House, you have all these arguments about how important this is to protect the stability of the White House itself, all right. So the whole side is gone — sort of a third. If you think of people looking at it and sort of three parts, a third is gone," the judge said.

Roth countered by arguing that this scenario is not like a scientist complaining that government action resulted in not being able to find or study a rare beetle.

"If it's just, I'm just not going to enjoy this as much, I'm not going to like this view as much as I used to," Roth cautioned, "I think at that point we're opening the door to anyone who says government's doing something, there's a visual manifestation of it, and that upsets me."

If someone showed up complaining about the picture placed on the $10 bill, "I think this court would say that's a generalized grievance, classic generalized grievance," the lawyer added.

Notably, U.S. Circuit Judge Neomi Rao, the lone Trump appointee on the panel, appeared to think that the National Trust would be able to establish standing one way or another and asked about whether this issue is "germane to the Trust's purposes."

"It seems under our precedents it may not be that difficult for a different plaintiff or member of the Trust to make allegations that would satisfy our standing requirements, because they're not that rigorous, even if these declarations do not," Rao remarked.

When Roth stated the DOJ is "not taking the position that there's no possible person" who might have standing, Millett asked him for some examples.

"So I'm a little reluctant to give them ideas," the attorney chuckled, ultimately offering no examples of a "visual injury from a new structure."

Millett asked whether the "descendants of the slaves who built the original White House" who "once a month walks by, looks, contemplates a sacrifice, feels a connection to it in that basis" could establish standing.

"So, what I would say is, I think that person, if they sued before the demolition happened — " Roth started to reply, before Millett reminded him the East Wing was torn down before the Trust sued.

"If the hypothetical is that the White House has already been bulldozed, then I don't think somebody would have standing," Roth conceded.

"So just as long as you move fast enough no one has standing to challenge it, even if they have that type of personal connection?" Millett followed up.

"I do think that that is correct," the DOJ lawyer said.

"Okay. So just move fast and break things and nobody has standing?" the judge asked again moments later.

Then came another hypothetical.

If the government quickly decides to bulldoze the Statue of Liberty and descendants of immigrants try to sue after the fact, she asked, "Nothing can be done?"

"I think that's right," Roth said.

The president has attempted to garner support for his decision to tear down the East Wing by calling the ballroom a free no-brainer for the everyday taxpayer, thanks to corporate donors. New reporting from nonprofit progressive group Public Citizen said Thursday, however, that the donors have benefited to the tune of $50 billion in government contracts.

"Most of the corporate donors — 16 out of 27 — are facing federal enforcement actions and/or have had federal enforcement actions suspended by the Trump administration," the report said.

The $400 million ballroom price tag doesn't account for the — so far — billion-dollar security funding ask.