Virginia and D.C. Sue to Stop Trump's Planned Arch Days Before Construction Could Begin

Virginia and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration in federal court on Saturday to block construction of a 250-foot triumphal arch planned for Memorial Circle, becoming the third and most politically weighty set of plaintiffs to challenge the monument just days before the government says it intends to begin work.

The suit, filed by Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones and D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb, argues the project violates four federal statutes, including the Commemorative Works Act, which requires congressional authorization before new memorials are built on federal land in the capital, and the Height of Buildings Act, which caps most District structures at 130 feet. The arch's main structure would stand 166 feet, reaching 250 feet with a planned "Winged Liberty" sculpture on top, according to minutes of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts meeting at which the design won final approval in May.

"Construction of the Arch is flagrantly illegal and will cause serious, immediate, and irreparable harm," Schwalb said in a statement announcing the filing. Jones was blunter, calling the project "President Trump's illegal vanity project" and "an affront to this hallowed ground," a reference to the arch's position near the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery at the western end of Arlington Memorial Bridge.

A third lawsuit, a looming deadline

The new case lands atop two others already pending. The first, Lemmon v. Trump, was brought in February by three Vietnam War veterans and an architectural historian represented by the advocacy group Public Citizen, who argue the arch lacks congressional authorization and would obstruct the historic sightline between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington House. The second came in October from the Arlington County Board in Virginia, which sued the Interior Department and National Park Service over what it called a "cursory and conclusory" environmental review.

What distinguishes Saturday's filing is timing and standing. Virginia and the District are not advocacy plaintiffs but the two governments whose shared infrastructure sits astride the project site. Their complaint says that "as soon as Defendants break ground on this project, they will inflict irreparable harm on both the District and Virginia," citing roughly three years of construction-related disruption to a corridor that carries tens of thousands of vehicles daily between the two jurisdictions, stormwater runoff into the Potomac River, and interference with the kind of cross-border emergency coordination that proved critical after the January 2025 midair collision near Reagan National Airport that killed 67 people. The two governments are asking a judge for a temporary restraining order to halt construction and site preparation.

The administration has told the court it intends to seek final sign-off from the National Capital Planning Commission, whose board is dominated by Trump appointees, at the commission's regularly scheduled meeting this coming Thursday, and that construction could begin that same day. The commission had already approved preliminary site and building plans at its July meeting, with conditions the applicant was told to resolve before a final vote; the government submitted a 106-page plan addressing those conditions on Friday.

What the arch would be

Modeled loosely on Paris's Arc de Triomphe, the structure is formally a National Park Service project billed as marking the 250th anniversary of American independence. Fine Arts Commission minutes describe granite cladding over cast-in-place concrete, a foundation of driven piles reaching bedrock roughly 70 feet below grade, and a rooftop "Winged Liberty" figure meant to evoke the Winged Victory of Samothrace while anchoring a sightline toward the U.S. Capitol. Commissioners removed flanking stone lions and pedestals from earlier designs and swapped a planned eagle-head keystone for a plainer classical scroll, but let Trump keep the winged rooftop sculpture after initially suggesting it be dropped. No sculptor has yet been formally engaged for the statuary program, which the commission expects to review separately.

Trump has periodically floated a harder-edged purpose for the structure. In September he wrote on Truth Social that the arch would double as a security installation capable of housing drones and positioning snipers, and at a recent appearance at Mar-a-Lago he said the project "is very important militarily for Washington, D.C., and our country." The final design plans submitted to the planning commission do not include those military features, according to NBC News, which reported the lawsuit's filing along with renderings showing winged eagles, a Lady Liberty figure and an inscription of the Pledge of Allegiance.

In court this week

The legal fight is also advancing on a separate track in the original veterans' case. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan held a hearing Friday on the veterans' request to halt the project while their lawsuit proceeds, but did not rule from the bench, telling the parties she intended to act "expeditiously." According to accounts of the hearing relayed by PBS NewsHour, Chutkan pressed a Justice Department lawyer on what harm the government would suffer from a short delay "apart from the executive's desire to bedazzle the city." Robert Stander, the administration's attorney, countered that the arch is "absolutely a high priority project." Chutkan has already ordered the government to give the court 48 hours' notice before any site activity beyond preliminary surveying.

"As soon as Defendants break ground on this project, they will inflict irreparable harm on both the District and Virginia." — from the Virginia and D.C. complaint

The White House has not backed down publicly. Spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement reported by CBS News that "thanks to the Builder-in-Chief, no other president has done more to beautify our Nation's interior than President Trump," and separately described the arch as poised to become "one of the most iconic landmarks" in Washington, serving as a ceremonial gateway to Arlington National Cemetery. Ingle did not directly address the new lawsuit when asked.

Who is affected, and what comes next

The practical stakes extend beyond legal doctrine. Memorial Circle sits at the junction of Arlington Memorial Bridge, the George Washington Memorial Parkway and the main vehicle entrance to Arlington National Cemetery, a route used daily by commuters, military funeral processions and tourists crossing between Virginia and the District. Virginia and D.C. officials argue that three years of construction on that artery, without the structured environmental and traffic review normally required for projects of this scale, would complicate everything from Metro bus routing to the kind of rapid-response coordination between D.C. and Virginia agencies that the local news outlet ArlNow reported was a central concern raised in the filing.

• Three separate lawsuits are now pending against the arch project, filed by veterans and a historian, by Arlington County, and by Virginia and the District of Columbia.
• The National Capital Planning Commission is scheduled to consider final approval of the project on Thursday, November 5, with the administration saying construction could begin the same day.
• Judge Tanya Chutkan has not yet ruled on a request to halt the project but said she would act quickly; Virginia and D.C. are separately seeking a temporary restraining order.

Barring a court order, the planning commission's Thursday meeting is positioned to be the next concrete milestone, arriving two days after the midterm elections and in the same week the administration has told the court it wants to break ground. If Chutkan or another judge grants an injunction before then, construction would be paused until at least one of the three underlying lawsuits is resolved, a process that in comparable federal monument disputes has taken months rather than weeks. If no order issues, workers could begin site preparation at Memorial Circle while the litigation continues in parallel, a scenario the plaintiffs' attorneys say is precisely the "irreparable harm" they are trying to prevent before it happens rather than after.