DOJ says stopped UFC event attack shows ballroom needed
The Department of Justice has asked a federal appeals court to allow construction to move forward on President Donald Trump’s planned White House ballroom, pointing to the thwarted attack on last weekend’s UFC event.
“This latest assassination plot against President Trump and dignitaries at the White House demonstrates the compelling need for the East Wing Project, with a Ballroom designed to defend against just such attacks,” Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate wrote in a letter Tuesday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, reports The Washington Post.
He added in the letter, released publicly Wednesday morning, that the proposed ballroom will support “a highly sophisticated Drone Port and Sniper Nests atop the Ballroom that would destroy any effort to launch such an attack.”
The ballroom, he added, will feature many other critical strategic features, such as a “heavy steel drone-proof roof, missile-resistant columns, bullet, ballistic, and blast-proof glass windows, military-grade and hermetically sealed venting for air conditioning and heating, and far more.”
Further, said Shumate, the ballroom’s mass and height will “shield the White House
grounds from attack, and give the Secret Service the visibility needed to
identify attackers.”