by
MANDEL
NGAN/AFP
via
Getty
Images)
For
several
months,
President
Donald
Trump
has
been
talking
about
the
massive
gaudy
ballroom
that
he
thinks
is
needed
at
the
White
House.
In
July,
Trump
said
of
the
ballroom’s
impact
on
the
White
House’s
East
Wing,
“It’ll
be
near
it
but
not
touching
it,
and
pays
total
respect
to
the
existing
building,
which
I’m
the
biggest
fan
of.”
Last
week,
construction
crews
completely
demolished
the
East
Wing
of
the
White
House
without
any
input
whatsoever
from
historians
or
structural
preservationists.
The
East
Wing
as
we
know
it
(well,
as
we
knew
it)
dates
to
1942
when
President
Franklin
D.
Roosevelt
commissioned
the
structure
to
add
necessary
wartime
working
space
to
the
White
House
as
well
as
to
conceal
a
fortified
underground
bunker
added
for
emergency
use
by
the
president
and
key
staff.
The
East
Wing
has
had
a
rich
history,
including
as
the
part
of
the
White
House
that
half
a
dozen
first
ladies
worked
out
of.
It
took
only
about
three
days
to
destroy
83
years
of
presidential
history.
This
from
the
same
administration
that
just
had
D.C.’s
only
Confederate
statute
reinstalled
while
crowing
the
same
tired
lies
you
always
hear
from
the
right
about
how
much
they
love
and
feel
the
need
to
preserve
history
whenever
it’s
a
monument
to
racism
they
want
to
protect
rather
than
the
East
Wing
of
the
effing
White
House.
At
any
rate,
the
Trump
administration
has
been
bragging
about
how
Trump’s
new
ballroom
will
not
be
taxpayer
funded,
but
will
instead
be
funded
by
private
donors.
I
mean,
taxpayers
still
aren’t
getting
compensated
for
the
total
destruction
of
the
historical
East
Wing
of
the
White
House
that
we
already
owned,
but
sure.
Also
I
don’t
really
see
how
the
president
selling
influence
to
giant
corporations
and
obscenely
wealthy
individuals
is
going
to
be
better
for
us
than
the
waste
of
a
few
hundred
million
more
tax
dollars
by
the
administration
that
just
made
history
of
its
own
by
ballooning
America’s
national
debt
by
an
additional
$1
trillion
in
the
span
of
only
two
months.
Nevertheless,
along
with
some
of
the
usual
suspects
when
it
comes
to
facilitating
presidential
corruption
in
this
administration,
the
list
of
donors
to
the
ballroom
project
provided
by
the
Trump
administration
also
contains
some
very
big,
mainstream
names,
including
a
few
companies
I
do
business
with
myself.
One
of
those
companies
is
my
cellphone
service
provider,
T-Mobile.
Though
it
is
on
the
expensive
side
compared
to
some
of
its
competitors,
I
have
generally
been
very
happy
with
T-Mobile
(thanks,
T-Mobile,
for
providing
cellphone
service
that
held
up
while
I
was
recently
traveling
in
Ukraine
even
through
“missiles
and
drones
raining
down
on
the
Lviv
region”).
I
contacted
T-Mobile
US
Media
Relations
with
the
following
questions:
-
I
understand
that
the
T-Mobile
donation
was
made
to
the
Trust
for
the
National
Mall.
How
was
T-Mobile
approached
about
making
this
donation? -
Who,
specifically,
approached
T-Mobile
about
its
donation? -
Was
T-Mobile
aware
that
its
donation
would
be
used
to
fund
construction
of
the
new
White
House
ballroom
at
the
time
that
T-Mobile
agreed
to
make
the
donation? -
How
much
did
T-Mobile
donate
or
pledge
to
donate? -
Were
any
conversations
had
between
anyone
at
T-Mobile
and
any
official
in
which
both
this
donation
as
well
as
business
pertaining
to
the
Trump
Mobile
network
and/or
Liberty
Mobile
Wireless
came
up? -
Was
anything
promised,
whether
expressly
or
implicitly,
to
T-Mobile
in
return
for
making
this
donation? -
Does
T-Mobile
support
the
complete
demolition
of
the
East
Wing
of
the
White
House?
I
received
a
response
a
few
hours
later
that,
although
not
perfectly
tailored
to
my
questions,
proved
enlightening
on
its
own
merits.
Here
it
is,
verbatim,
attributed
to
T-Mobile
as
instructed:
Ahead
of
America’s
250th
Anniversary,
T-Mobile
donated
to
the
Trust
for
the
National
Mall,
which
partners
with
the
National
Park
Service
to
restore
and
enrich
the
historic
landmarks
that
define
our
nation’s
capital,
such
as
the
White
House
ballroom.T-Mobile
has
no
role
in
the
use
of
those
funds
or
decisions
related
to
the
construction
of
the
ballroom.
Perhaps
I’m
being
lied
to
–
T-Mobile
has
a
lot
more
to
lose
by
offending
Donald
Trump
than
it
does
by
offending
me
–
but
I
don’t
think
so.
I
even
happen
to
know
a
little
about
plans
for
the
U.S.
Semiquincentennial
which
helps
me
read
between
the
lines
here
a
little
to
understand
that
most
of
these
plans
long
predate
Trump’s
second
term.
Of
course,
as
we’ve
seen
repeatedly,
Trump
is
going
to
throw
pretty
much
all
the
plans
that
predate
his
second
term
right
out
the
window,
along
with
possibly
throwing
away
the
window
itself.
Likely
T-Mobile
did
not
know
this
when
it
made
its
donation.
Quite
possibly
T-Mobile,
and
perhaps
other
companies
tagged
as
donors
for
the
ballroom
by
the
Trump
administration,
did
not
even
know
that
Trump
would
be
elected
president
at
the
time
the
funds
were
donated.
Beyond
wanting
to
generally
make
money,
I
do
not
know
what
is
in
the
cold,
metallic,
metaphorical
heart
of
a
giant
corporation
like
T-Mobile.
That
being
said,
it
sure
seems
to
me
that
their
involvement
in
this
whole
East
Wing
fiasco
is
based
largely
on
Trump
raiding
funds
that
should
have
been
used
for
something
else
–
one
of
his
signature
moves,
really
–
and
amounts
to
a
donation
made
in
good
faith
gone
awry.
In
other
words,
quite
possibly
Trump
is
abusing
his
position
(who’d
have
thunk
it?)
and
is
now
using
a
false
implication
of
support
from
mainstream
companies
in
an
attempt
to
prop
up
a
facade
of
legitimacy
over
his
White
House
ballroom
debacle.
Jonathan
Wolf
is
a
civil
litigator
and
author
of Your
Debt-Free
JD (affiliate
link).
He
has
taught
legal
writing,
written
for
a
wide
variety
of
publications,
and
made
it
both
his
business
and
his
pleasure
to
be
financially
and
scientifically
literate.
Any
views
he
expresses
are
probably
pure
gold,
but
are
nonetheless
solely
his
own
and
should
not
be
attributed
to
any
organization
with
which
he
is
affiliated.
He
wouldn’t
want
to
share
the
credit
anyway.
He
can
be
reached
at [email protected].