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Archive photo · 27 October 2024Virginia and Washington, D.C. Sue Trump To Block 250-Foot Triumphal Arch Near Arlington Cemetery
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DC and Virginia jointly filed a federal suit to block Trump's 250-foot arch. They designate the project flagrantly unlawful and harmful to historic and environmental heritage.
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30 outlets told this the same way.
New lawsuit targets arch
The governments of Washington, D.C. and Virginia filed a joint federal lawsuit to block President Donald Trump’s planned “triumphal arch” at Memorial Circle near Arlington National Cemetery, seeking a temporary restraining order to stop construction. The lawsuit argues the project is “flagrantly unlawful” and says the arch would be built on a busy traffic circle that abuts the border between the jurisdictions and sits in a historic viewshed. The filing also says the arch would “inflict immediate and irreparable harm on the District and Virginia,” and it asks the court to halt any site preparation or construction.
The suit frames its timing as urgent, with White House officials maintaining that ground could be broken as early as next week, on or around November 5. The dispute adds to other legal challenges, including a separate case involving Vietnam veterans and an architectural historian that a federal judge indicated might potentially side with them and block the project.
Arguments and competing claims
Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones said the arch is an “illegal vanity project” and called it an affront to Arlington National Cemetery and the “extraordinary sacrifices it represents.”
D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb said the construction is “flagrantly illegal” and warned that it will cause “serious, immediate, and irreparable harm to the District and its residents.”
White House spokesman Davis Ingle told City Cast that “The Triumphal Arch in Memorial Circle is going to be one of the most iconic landmarks not only in Washington, D.C., but throughout the world,” and he said it would serve as a gateway to Arlington National Cemetery for veterans and families of the fallen.
The lawsuit contends that the administration rushed the project without proper consultations and argues that the National Park Service and the Interior Department have rushed the project without the proper consultations.
The administration has also argued the arch would serve a national security function, and Trump claimed in a post to Truth Social that the arch could be used as a drone deployment location and a sniper's nest, as well as a storage facility for ammunition.
What is at stake next
The lawsuit asks a federal judge to issue injunctions to stop any site preparation or construction and warns that the three-year construction period will “inevitably snarl traffic between the jurisdictions” while producing pollution and stormwater runoff in the Potomac. The filing also argues that the arch would interfere with emergency services and pose “numerous other challenges,” and it seeks to prevent the administration from starting work before final design approval expected to be granted. The dispute centers on whether the project has congressional authorization, with the suit calling it “legally indefensible” without congressional authorization and alleging violations of the Height of Buildings Act.
The project’s scale is described as 250 feet, and the lawsuit says the arch would exceed 130 feet in height, while the plaintiffs also cite the 1910 Height-of-District Law that sets limits for buildings in Washington. Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan is overseeing a related case, and the sources say she signaled she would issue a decision expeditiously after a Friday hearing that deferred an immediate ruling and indicated she would issue a decision expeditiously.
