Judge Blocks Trump’s Arch After Panel Approves Construction

A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from breaking ground on a massive triumphal arch that President Donald Trump has said will be built at the foot of Arlington National Cemetery.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan issueda two-week restraining order late Thursday, barring any construction activity related to the arch while litigation is pending.

The arch, which won approval earlier in the day from the National Capital Planning Association — a panel stocked with the president’s allies — has drawn fierce opposition from local officials, preservation organizations and a group of veterans who visit the cemetery to honor their fallen friends. Chutkan concluded that the harms facing Washington and Virginia — from years of traffic disruptions to economic damage caused by the huge construction zone — justified the immediate halt.

Chutkan signaled last week that she was skeptical of the administration’s rush to begin construction while litigation was underway. In her opinion, Chutkan also emphasized that she did not buy the administration’s last-ditch attempt to cast the arch as a military complex.

“The court appreciates the government’s significant interest in national security. But these recent and unsupported attestations of security aspects of a structure that has been extensively discussed over the last year appear nowhere in the planning documents on which the project was reviewed and approved,” Chutkan wrote.

The Obama-appointed judge had asked the administration to provide her notice before construction began, and she used that window to intervene. The project is expected to take three years to complete.

Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), who testified against the arch at the NCPA meeting, hailed Chutkan’s decision but said it must be followed by a more permanent block on the arch.

“This fight is not over,” Beyer said. “I will do everything in my power alongside my colleagues in the Democratic majorities just elected to the next Congress to ensure that this wasteful, disrespectful monstrosity goes nowhere.”

The White House and Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The project has taken on greater importance after Democrats won both the House and the Senate in Tuesday’s election, all but guaranteeing congressional friction with Trump starting in January.

Rep.Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, slammed the project during Thursday's hearing as a monument to Trump’s ego.

“Trump is a president, not a king,” Huffman testified at the commission hearing. “Our most revered presidents earned their place of honor. They didn't try to bestow it on themselves with gaudy tributes.”

Commission Chair Mark Paoletta, general counsel for the Office of Management and Budget, said, “It's important to our national identity to display who we are through grand monuments.”

Democrats, veterans, conservation groups and activists said the arch would dishonor the solemnity of Arlington National Cemetery just outside Washington and violate federal laws by circumventing Congress. They also questioned the administration’s private plan to use the arch as both a tourist destination and a military arsenal. Officials in Washington and Virginia also sued over its construction.

Commissioners Phil Mendelson and Arrington Dixon unsuccessfully pushed to delay the commission’s vote.

Mendelson, who chairs Washington’s city council, questioned why the project lacks congressional approval and pushed back against the administration’s argument that the arch was justified by the planning law for the Memorial Bridge. Those plans, Mendelson said, were “quite clear” in their intent to initially build two columns that supplemented the Lincoln Memorial, not overwhelmed it.

Dixon, appointed by Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser, argued that there are unresolved legal issues.

“It’s in the court’s hands,” he said. The vote to delay failed 8 to 4.

The commission’s approval advances what would be a crowning achievement in Trump’s effort to leave his signature on the capital city. Justice Department lawyers implied in court last month that the National Park Service and Interior Department could issue the project’s necessary permits within hours of the planning commission’s final approval.

The arch is one of several Trump projects, which include building 500 statues of historical figures along the Potomac River and a ballroom larger than the White House.

It aims to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. With its gold statue of a Lady Liberty-like figure, the arch would tower over the 99-foot-tall Lincoln Memorial in Washington, on the opposite side of a historic bridge. The bridge was designed to symbolically link the country’s northern and southern states in memory of the ending of the Civil War — by connecting the Robert E. Lee Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial.

The National Park Service approved the project earlier this year after noting that it would likely harm the viewshed, including of the Lincoln Memorial.

Missing from Thursday’s discussion were details of the arch’s proposed military purposes, described by the president as an arsenal and drone location. Paoletta defended the omission, arguing that the commission’s job is to evaluate the building not its purpose.

Mendelson pressed administration officials on how the arch could safely serve as both a tourist destination and a military facility.

Gregory Wischer, deputy chief of staff at the Interior Department, said the military plans were given to a federal judge but not to the commission.

A number of veterans and family members of service members spoke against the arch Thursday.

Jimi Shaughnessy, veterans program manager for the National Capital Planning Commission, said a “carnival” of tourists, buses and food trucks at the Arlington National Cemetery entrance would be inappropriate. Bart Collart, the father of a marine who died trying to save two other service members in a helicopter fire, called the arch a “loud, boastful, gaudy piece of marketing dropped onto sacred ground.”

Several veterans organizations spoke in favor of the arch, including the National Vet Court Alliance. Kevin Lilly, a lieutenant colonel in the Texas State Guard and the assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks, said he supports the arch as an emblem of the sacrifice of U.S. military personnel.

“This arch does not represent partisanship or politics,” he said. “It stamps the courage of those who serve, the sacrifices of those who never came home, and, in a greater sense, the triumph of the American spirit.”