Three military veterans and a historic preservationist on Thursday sued the Trump administration over President Donald Trump’s planned 250-foot triumphal arch, arguing that the new structure would disrupt the experience of visiting Arlington National Cemetery and interfere with the intent of nearby monuments.
Michael Lemmon, Shaun Byrnes and Jon Gundersen, who served in the Vietnam War and later worked as U.S. diplomats, say that the arch would obstruct “the symbolic and inspiring view” from the cemetery to the Lincoln Memorial. Calder Loth, a retired senior architectural historian for the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, said the new structure would undermine the historic relationship between Arlington National Cemetery and other monuments by interrupting long-planned sight lines, including along Memorial Avenue.
Public Citizen, a government watchdog organization, filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and is seeking to halt the project until the Trump administration secures approval from Congress and federal review panels.
The White House did not immediately respond to questions about the lawsuit, which was shared with The Washington Post.
Trump has touted the arch as a priority, telling Politico in December that he hoped to begin construction “sometime in the next two months.” The Post reported that Trump has told allies that he wants the arch to be 250 feet tall to correspond with the nation’s 250th anniversary this year.
“I’d like it to be the biggest one of all,” the president told reporters last month. A triumphal arch in Mexico City, currently the largest in the world, measures 220 feet.
Federal review panels have yet to receive proposals for the project, and Congress has not signed off on its construction.
Memorial Circle, the plot of land that the president has targeted, is controlled by the National Park Service and is currently used as a traffic roundabout. A 1901-1902 report overseen by the Senate Park Commission, which laid the groundwork for constructing the National Mall and beautifying much of the city’s core, appears to envision some sort of structure in the circle, drawings show.
But historic preservationists have complained that a large arch would distort how pedestrians experience other monuments, including the Lincoln Memorial, which is about 100 feet tall and would sit across the Arlington Memorial Bridge from the arch. They also say a large arch would significantly alter past lawmakers’ and architects’ ambitions for Arlington Memorial Bridge, which was intended as a bridge between the North and the South in the wake of the Civil War and to connect memorials for President Abraham Lincoln and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. The arch could obstruct views of Arlington House, the former Lee estate that sits on a hillside in Arlington National Cemetery.
“I don’t think an arch that large belongs there,” Catesby Leigh, an art critic who in 2024 conceived of building a temporary 60-foot arch in the circle, said in an interview last month.
Some observers have also questioned whether building a large new structure would have unexpected consequences, such as affecting the approach of planes to Reagan National Airport or reshaping traffic patterns as visitors seek to enter Washington from Virginia.
The planned project does not appear to be broadly popular. Twenty-one percent of adult citizens say they support a planned 250-foot arch, while 52 percent oppose the project, according to an Economist/YouGov poll conducted this month.
Trump has sought to move quickly on his other construction projects, including tearing down the White House’s East Wing last year to build a new ballroom without seeking approval from federal review panels. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, which is charged by Congress with helping preserve historic buildings, has sued to stop the ballroom project.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, who has questioned Trump’s authority to build the ballroom, has said that he may rule on that project this month.
In their lawsuit on Thursday, the military veterans and Loth said they were also turning to the court because they did not believe the Trump administration would wait for congressional approval or seek to comply with other federal requirements before attempting to build the arch.
Lemmon, who was U.S. ambassador to Armenia, and Byrnes, who was a senior Foreign Service officer during the Kosovo War, told the court they hope to be interred in Arlington National Cemetery when they die.
“They believe that the planned Arch … would dishonor their military and Foreign Service and the legacy of their comrades and other veterans buried at Arlington National Cemetery, and would degrade their personal experience when visiting Arlington Cemetery or traveling around Memorial Circle and on the Memorial Avenue Corridor,” the filing states.
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