President Donald Trump holds an artist rendering of interior of the new White House ballroom as he meets with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
The Trump administration is violating the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by refusing to release "environmental and occupational-safety" records of the recently demolished East Wing of the White House, according to an asbestos victims' advocacy organization.
In a 21-page complaint filed Wednesday, the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) accuses the National Park Service and several other administrative agency plaintiffs of repeatedly violating FOIA laws by failing to release various pieces of requested information about several health, environmental, and safety laws.
The lawsuit comes in response to President Donald Trump's highly publicized renovation of the White House to construct a ballroom, a demolition project that began construction in September 2025.
"ADAO strongly believes that the White House should set the national standard for a transparent and safe process to remove asbestos and other hazardous materials during the renovation of historic federal buildings," the complaint reads. "When an Administration bypasses required safety procedures or withholds documentation of the measures it took to prevent harm, it erodes public trust and weakens protections required by law to safeguard the American people and public resources."
The lawsuit cites several media reports regarding the renovation – some of which note that asbestos was widely used in construction project at the time the original White House structure was built.
The complaint goes on to ring alarm bells over a specific request by Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat, as to "whether the construction debris from the demolition had been tested for the presence of asbestos." The Trump administration, however, did not respond to Markey's asbestos-related inquiry, the lawsuit alleges.
The focal points of the group's concerns are a series of asbestos-related federal laws and regulations issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and the General Services Administration (GSA). The group is also concerned about the project's compliance with a homegrown asbestos safety statute in Washington, D.C.
To that end, ADAO in October penned a letter to Trump himself which requested "comprehensive records on the presence of asbestos and other hazardous substances in the East Wing, all abatement activities, and procedures employed to protect construction workers," according to the lawsuit.
"No response to the letter was received," the lawsuit says.
In November, the group filed a series of formal FOIA request with nine separate agencies, according to the lawsuit.
The litany of ADAO's requests spans nearly two pages in the complaint. The requests broadly concern hazardous material "abatement" procedures – if such procedures occurred and documentation thereof. The complaint also demands records for "[a]ll actions taken" to comply with the aforementioned district and state laws and regulations.
To date, only the GSA responded to the FOIA requests, the group says.
"That response, a letter dated November 10, 2025, stated that GSA did not 'locate records responsive to your request' and added that 'GSA is not involved with the current renovation or construction activity at the White House,'" the lawsuit reads. "Although ADAO received notices of receipt for the remaining FOIA requests, no responses had been received as of the date of the filing of this Complaint."
After waiting a statutorily required 20 working days envisioned by the federal FOIA law, the group filed its FOIA lawsuit.
"Defendants' failure to make determinations on or to produce documents requested in plaintiff's FOIA requests within the time limits set by FOIA is a denial of those requests and wrongful withholding of records," the lawsuit goes on.
The plaintiffs are asking the judge to order the agency defendants to "immediately produce the records responsive to plaintiff's FOIA requests, including all material that is not properly subject to a FOIA exemption" and to identify "all documents withheld under a FOIA exemption and specify why the exemption applies." The group also wants the court to issue a declaration that the defendants are "wrongfully withholding agency documents" in violation of FOIA.
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