WASHINGTON — The District of Columbia and Virginia sued on Saturday to block President Donald Trump’s planned 250-foot triumphal arch, calling the project “flagrantly unlawful” and saying it would forever change the landscape of the nation’s capital, according to The Washington Post.
The arch would stand near Arlington National Cemetery. Trump wants it built to mark the nation’s 250th birthday, and his administration hopes to start construction as soon as next week.
Saturday’s filing is the newest front in a fight that was already in court on Friday. In a separate case brought by Vietnam veterans and a historian, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan pressed the Justice Department on why the work had to move so fast.
The administration told the court it hopes to win final approval on Nov. 5 and could begin construction that same day, according to The Associated Press. Chutkan asked how the government would be harmed, apart from the executive’s desire to “bedazzle the city,” if she paused the project while the case goes on.
Robert Stander, the government’s lawyer, called the arch “absolutely a high priority project.” A delay, he argued, would impede the government’s work.
The government filed a 106-page plan for the arch on Friday. It shows a structure more than 12 stories high, topped by a large bronze statue of Lady Liberty with wings and a torch carrying an eternal flame.
Inside would be program space, offices, a staff lounge, circular staircases, several elevators and a “fire command center,” the AP reported. The plan also calls for an observation deck and big changes to traffic on nearby roads.
For the veterans who sued, the site is the issue. Michael Lemmon, an Army helicopter pilot in Vietnam, told the judge he visits the Vietnam Veterans Memorial before walking toward the cemetery to pay respects to fallen comrades buried there.
“This is hallowed ground. This is really sacred territory.”
The plaintiffs in that case say Congress, not the president alone, must approve the arch. Shaun Byrnes, a Navy veteran badly wounded in Vietnam, told the court he does not want to be buried at Arlington if the arch goes up beside it.
Arlington County sued earlier, in federal court in Virginia. The county says the National Park Service did only a cursory review of the project, in violation of federal environmental law, and it warns the 250-foot structure could force changes to flight paths at nearby Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
County Board Chair Matt de Ferranti said Arlington filed because “our community has the most to lose from this egregious and unlawful proposed project.”
The next date in the fight is Nov. 5, when the administration hopes the National Capital Planning Commission gives the arch its final approval.
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