Trump’s memorial arch faces a new lawsuit from Arlington County, Virginia

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Arlington County Board in Virginia filed a lawsuit Thursday opposing the construction of the Triumphal Arch, becoming the first governmental body to take legal action against President Donald Trump’s planned monument.

The lawsuit, filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, criticized the speed at which the project slated for Memorial Circle has moved without going through the full review process.

“The National Park Service, the agency responsible for projects on national park land such as Memorial Circle, is proceeding full-speed toward ground-disturbing construction,” the lawsuit said. “Although the agency has claimed that a final decision to construct the Arch has not yet been made and purports to be engaged in a routine decisional process, that rushed process appears to be a pretext designed to shore up justifications for building the Arch in accordance with the President’s repeated marching orders.”

The lawsuit asks that “the agency’s feverish pace toward construction of the arch” be halted to ensure that the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act be followed and proper analysis and testing be done.

“The Arlington County Board has filed this lawsuit because our community has the most to lose from this egregious and unlawful proposed project,” Arlington County Board Chair Matt de Ferranti said in a statement. He added that the county has acted in good faith in the review process, pointing out the “severe, unique, and wide-ranging negative impacts” the project will have on the county and its residents, only to see them ignored.

Memorial Circle sits on federal parkland west of the Potomac River across the Memorial Bridge and immediately adjacent to Arlington County.

The county is being represented in the lawsuit by legal advocacy group Democracy Forward.

White House spokesman Davis Ingle said the Trump administration and White House have been “fastidiously compliant with all procedural and legal requirements and are certain this meritless and dilatory lawsuit will be dismissed.”

The arch will become one of the world’s most iconic landmarks, he added. “It will enhance the visitor experience at Arlington National Cemetery for veterans, the families of the fallen, and all Americans alike.”

The lawsuit came a day after the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA President Sara Nelson expressed concerns that the 250-foot (76-meter) arch compounds multiple safety issues that she said have gone unaddressed since a deadly January 2025, crash over the Potomac River that killed 67 people. Nelson also criticized Trump’s plan to turn the arch into “a top grade military complex” able to host drones and snipers while storing ammunition.

Though the arch has received early approval from the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, whose members were all tapped by Trump, a group of three veterans and an architectural historian sued in federal court in Washington, D.C., saying the project needs to be approved by Congress. The judge in that lawsuit said the administration must give the court 48 hours before undertaking any activities related to or in preparation for construction of the arch.

The arch is one of several projects around Washington that Trump has undertaken as he remakes the city, from renovating one of its storied public golf courses to threatening to demolish the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.