Secrecy around White House security keeps many specifics hidden, but recent litigation over a planned 90,000-square-foot ballroom at the former East Wing site has put an underground bunker back in the spotlight.
The dispute pits the Trump administration against the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which sued to block the ballroom project. A federal appeals court recently allowed some work to proceed, pausing a lower court’s order that had halted aboveground construction while permitting certain safety- and security-related work to continue. Court filings from the administration describe a heavily fortified underground complex tied to the ballroom, including bomb-resistant spaces, military installations and medical facilities.
The East Wing bunker has roots in World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had an underground bomb shelter installed in 1942, and that site later evolved into what is known today as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC). Public detail about the PEOC is limited for security reasons. Historian Garrett Graff has described it as a short-term space intended to move the president quickly from a known location to an unknown, safer one so government functions can continue.
The underground space has been used at least a few notable times. Vice President Dick Cheney was escorted into a bunker at the White House on Sept. 11, 2001. More recently, President Trump was taken to a White House bunker in 2020 during unrest following George Floyd’s death, when protests and clashes near Lafayette Park prompted security concerns.
The administration argues the proposed aboveground ballroom is necessary to protect and complete the security-related underground work. Deputy Secret Service director Matthew Quinn told the court that an aboveground slab and topping structure are needed to properly shield and reinforce critical subterranean facilities, and that leaving construction unfinished could jeopardize protective missions.
President Trump and administration filings describe a range of security upgrades tied to the project: a roof designed to resist drones, hardened air-handling systems, bio-defense measures, secure communications, bomb shelters and medical treatment areas. The filings and Trump’s public statements say the underground and aboveground components are functionally linked, with the subterranean work dependent on completion of the surface structure.
The National Trust counters that the project moved forward without required approvals from federal agencies or Congress and that the president exceeded his authority. In March, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon sided with the nonprofit, briefly allowing underground safety work while blocking aboveground construction; the administration appealed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has scheduled oral arguments in the case for June 5.
Funding is another point of contention. Officials expect taxpayers to cover security-related elements of the project, though Trump has said private donors will pay for the ballroom itself. How tightly the underground and aboveground pieces are integrated — and which parts may legitimately be carried out without additional approvals — remains a central question the courts will decide.
