President Donald Trump's Justice Department filed an emergency appeal Friday night to keep his $400 million White House ballroom under construction, and legal observers immediately noted the filing reads less like a federal appellate brief and more like one of the president's Truth Social screeds.

The 27-page motion, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, invokes "American Patriots" who donated to the project, boasts that construction is "under budget and ahead of schedule