Trump triumphal arch construction blocked by federal judge, Digi Mart USA News (Washington): A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from beginning construction on President Trump’s proposed triumphal arch late Thursday, siding for now with a group of Vietnam veterans, the District of Columbia and Virginia, which sued to stop the project.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled that the government cannot start any “construction-related activity” for 14 days while further legal proceedings play out.
In a 33-page ruling, Chutkan wrote that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed in showing the federal government did not follow required legal processes before moving to build the 250-foot triumphal arch.
She also said Virginia and D.C. likely have standing to sue, pointing to “tangible economic harms” caused by traffic problems at the construction site.
The ruling came shortly after the National Capital Planning Commission voted Thursday night to approve plans for the arch, giving the final go-ahead for the monument set to be built between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.
The NCPC, which acts as the federal government’s planning agency for the region and is stacked with Trump allies, voted 8-4 to greenlight the project after almost nine hours of public comments from members of Congress, veterans, architects and residents of Washington, D.C., and Virginia. Chutkan’s order aside, it is unclear how soon construction could start, though the Justice Department said in a court filing last month that it could begin as soon as Thursday.
In a separate filing Wednesday night, the Trump administration said a construction company “may be — but is not necessarily — arranging off-site preparations for construction mobilization in anticipation of permit approval” at the site. Ahead of the meeting, the NCPC’s executive director, Mark Paoletta, recommended approval of the final site and building plans for the structure, which is supposed to celebrate 250 years of American independence.
Paoletta, the top lawyer at the Office of Management and Budget, praised Trump’s “historic vision” for the structure and said it would be the “grandest arch ever built by mankind.”
California Rep. Jared Huffman, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, said during the hearing that the arch is “illegal” and would “disrupt the solemn connection” between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.
“This arch would dishonor America, our ideals, and our laws,” Huffman said, adding that Congress is the appropriate body for debating the proposed monument.
Marine veteran Jimi Shaughnessy, who spoke in opposition, said “a dominating arch with a carnival-like atmosphere of tourists, food trucks and buses is abhorrent and insulting to those who gave all and to their families.” He added that the administration was “intent on spending taxpayer dollars to site, plan, and design a monument no one asked for.”
The arch itself will be 166 feet tall and topped with “three gilded figures”: a gold, winged female figure flanked by a gold flying eagle on each side, bringing its overall height to 250 feet, according to documents filed with the NCPC. The structure will sit close to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, though the Federal Aviation Administration determined it will pose “no hazard to air navigation,” with a “condition for safety lighting that includes a non-standard eternal flame and continuous floodlighting.”
The arch will also feature an observation deck, and the administration has estimated it could draw between 2,000 and 22,400 visitors each day. It is expected to take three years to build the arch, which will be located in the center of Memorial Circle, across the Potomac from the Lincoln Memorial.
It is unclear how much the project will cost or who will pay for it.
Trump said in September that his “Triumphal Arch” would be a “top grade Military Complex” and house drones and sniper ammunition, but the NCPC documents do not include military usage. Lawyers for the Justice Department declined to provide more details about the national security features at an October hearing.
The commission received more than 1,300 public comments about the project, most of them in opposition, it said. A group of Vietnam War veterans, as well as the Commonwealth of Virginia and the District of Columbia, have filed lawsuits arguing the administration is acting without congressional authorization and is not complying with required procedures to construct the monument.
In an order Tuesday, Chutkan required the government to provide notice within one hour of any NCPC vote and 30 minutes’ notice before any construction preparation, to give her time to decide whether to block construction. The government filed the notices late Thursday, and Chutkan responded by issuing a temporary restraining order blocking “construction, excavation, demolition, land-disturbance, utility installation, or roadway-closure activity, or any other construction-related activity” at the site.
In a hearing last month, Chutkan said the most important issue for her is whether the Vietnam War veterans had the legal right to sue. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court found that a group of plaintiffs who brought a similar suit to block White House ballroom construction likely did not have legal standing.
The Justice Department urged Chutkan to follow that decision, while attorneys for the plaintiffs argued their legal arguments differ from the ballroom case.
Vietnam veterans Michael Lemmon and Shaun Byrnes told Chutkan that arch construction would affect their experience visiting graves at Arlington National Cemetery and that they would be harmed by the arch’s size and purpose. In a separate suit filed in late October, Virginia and the District of Columbia argued that “as soon as Defendants break ground on this project, they will inflict irreparable harm,” saying the arch would snarl traffic, produce pollution and stormwater runoff in the Potomac, interfere with emergency services and pose other challenges.
