The Justice Department told a court the government would only conduct archaeological excavation, a day after a Trump official announced the project was in motion.
Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, announced plans to start work on the site of the 250-foot-tall triumphal arch. Final approval of the project is still pending.
A federal panel again paved the way for one of President Trump’s construction projects, even as it heard opposition to another proposal to fence in a park north of the White House.
A White House spokesman said the alley renovations included fixing broken lights. The project comes as the president has sought a broad overhaul of the White House and its surroundings.
The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that President Trump could continue his construction of a huge new ballroom for the White House where the East Wing used to be.
Lower-court rulings would have blocked construction of the 90,000-square-foot ballroom after finding that the Trump administration should have first sought approval from Congress.
The 90,000-square-foot ballroom project has grown in size and scope, with the president’s lawyers saying it is intertwined with the renovation of an underground military bunker.
While Customs and Border Protection said it intercepted more than half a ton of the controlled substance, experts say far more of the East African plant makes it into the country.
Joshua Fisher, the director of White House management and administration, estimated that the construction of the White House ballroom was 65 percent complete.
Prosecutors led by Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney in Washington, argued that Melissa Farris posed a flight risk and asked the court to reverse its decision.
The J. Edgar Hoover F.B.I. Building in Washington last year. An imposing symbol of the F.B.I.’s vast federal powers when it opened in 1974, the building has long been deteriorating.
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