A gunman opened fire near a security checkpoint at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday evening. A Secret Service agent was struck and saved by a ballistic vest. The suspect was taken into custody. The agent is expected to recover. Before the night was over, President Trump was using the shooting to argue for his proposed $250 million White House ballroom.

That argument deserves scrutiny.

The shooting happened at a security checkpoint outside the Washington Hilton. A ballroom at the White House would not have prevented it. The security failure that occurred on Saturday was a failure of checkpoint security at a hotel venue. The solution to that failure is a serious independent review of the Secret Service's security protocols for large public events, not a 90,000-square-foot construction project on the grounds of the White House that has already been challenged in court for bypassing required historic preservation approvals.

The proposed ballroom would demolish the historic East Wing of the White House, replacing one of the most historically significant parts of the people's house with a venue designed to seat 650 guests in classical style. The East Wing has served every president since Franklin Roosevelt. It houses the offices of the First Lady and the White House Social Secretary. It is part of a building that belongs not to any one president but to the American people and to the history of the nation. Demolishing it for a ballroom is not a security upgrade. It is a real estate project by a former real estate developer who has spent his second term adding golden accents to the Oval Office, paving the Rose Garden, and planning an Arc de Triomphe-style monument for Washington.

The legal challenges the project has already faced are not obstacles to be steamrolled. They exist because the administration appears to have bypassed required approvals, including historic preservation reviews that exist specifically to prevent irreversible damage to nationally significant structures. Courts are weighing the scope of presidential authority in this case. The shooting on Saturday does not change the legal questions the courts are considering. Using a tragic security incident as political cover to accelerate a legally challenged construction project is not a security response. It is opportunism.

And then there are the donors. The ballroom is described as largely privately financed. The donors have not been fully disclosed. Private individuals financing construction on the White House grounds, the physical home of the American presidency, raises serious and unresolved questions about what those donors expect in return. The American people have a right to know who is paying for permanent changes to their most iconic public building and what access or influence those donors may receive.

Sign this petition to demand the Trump administration halt the White House East Wing demolition and comply with all required historic preservation and legal approval processes, disclose the full list of private donors funding the ballroom project and any benefits or access they have received or been promised, and call for an independent security review of the Correspondents' Dinner shooting rather than using it to justify a legally challenged construction project.