The giant hole in the White House left by construction crews this week could be a metaphor for something bigger, one lawmaker says: the erosion of public trust.
The East Wing of the White House was demolished on Monday to make way for President Donald Trump’s new 90,000 square-foot ballroom. The president says the project will cost upward of $300 million — paid for by corporate donations.
Mississippi Rep. Bennie G. Thompson is now demanding answers from those companies.
“It looks like you’re tearing an abandoned building down, and you are looking at the citadel of democracy just being attacked by a bulldozer,” Thompson told Business Insider.
In a letter sent on Friday, Thompson demanded that over 20 corporations share information, including the amount of their donations and whether they had been promised anything in return.
“Today, there is a gaping hole in the side of the White House, and no one in the White House has been honest with Americans about the construction plans or the costs,” one letter addressed to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said. “You owe Americans an explanation.”
Thompson said the Trump administration bypassed the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. Presidents who want to renovate the White House typically submit plans to a commission and hold forums for historians, citizens, and experts to weigh in on the project’s outcome, he said.
“That obviously did not occur before demolition started,” Thompson said in the letter. Construction began as the federal government remains shut down.
Peter W. Stevenson/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Thompson gave the corporations until November 7 to respond to his questions, which also include a request to list any current federal contracts they hold.
“I’m thinking that a lot of the information we are asking for, they would’ve asked the same questions before they agreed to give the money,” he told Business Insider.
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The White House this week released the list of donors contributing to the project.
It includes Amazon, Apple, Google, Coinbase, Comcast Corporation, Lockheed Martin, Meta, Microsoft, Palantir, and several other notable companies. Some of these companies also donated to Trump’s 2024 inauguration fund, including $1 million contributions from Meta and Amazon.
YouTube’s parent company, Alphabet, contributed more than $20 million to the ballroom project as part of a legal settlement following its suspension of Trump’s account, according to court filings. The donation was made on Trump’s behalf to the Trust for the National Mall, a nonprofit entity dedicated to restoring and preserving the National Mall.
Trump initially said the ballroom project wouldn’t affect the current building.
“It’ll be near it, but not touching it, and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of,” he told reporters in July.
A construction crew, however, began demolishing the East Wing on Monday, two days before Trump told reporters that the project’s cost had grown to $300 million, up from his previous estimate of $200 million.
Thompson said his office hasn’t received any responses to the letter yet, but expects to in the coming week.
“I know of no other symbol of this great democracy than the White House, so if you are putting money into any kind of project toward that symbol, then the process has to be public,” Thompson told Business Insider.
Read the letter in full below:
