A federal judge on Thursday night froze President Donald Trump's planned 250-foot triumphal arch in Washington for at least two weeks, acting within hours of a planning panel stacked with his appointees giving the project final clearance.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan's 14-day temporary restraining order bars the government from breaking ground while consolidated lawsuits from the District of Columbia, Virginia, and a group of Vietnam War veterans and an architectural historian proceed. The administration had told the court excavation could start the same day.
In a 33-page opinion, Chutkan found the project likely violates federal law, that building it threatens immediate and irreparable harm, and that a pause serves the public interest. Traffic problems, she noted, would begin as soon as crews did.
The judge cast doubt on the administration's core legal theory: that Congress authorized the arch in 1925, when lawmakers approved two 166-foot columns for Memorial Circle that never went up. She wrote that it was improbable a century-old statute held power no earlier administration had recognized, and that relying on it showed how far the government had to stretch.
You're glorifying it by calling it an argument
Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen
Chutkan was equally skeptical of a newer rationale, national security. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called the arch a dual-purpose monument with military utility for homeland defense in a court filing, but the judge said those claims were missing from the planning documents, and government lawyers offered nothing beyond written declarations when asked.
At the commission meeting, Interior Department official Greg Wischer conceded under questioning that specific security functions had been filed with the court under seal and that the National Park Service had seen no defense plans. Officials confirmed the final plan contained no national security analysis.
A long night at the commission
The National Capital Planning Commission voted 8-4 after nearly nine hours of testimony, held online because 131 people signed up to speak; a livestream failure stretched the session by about an hour. Veterans, families with relatives at Arlington National Cemetery, Democratic lawmakers and preservation experts dominated, while only a few speakers, among them Georgia's Andrew Clyde and Florida's Brian Mast, Republican House members who are veterans, backed the arch.
D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson, a Democrat on the commission, moved to delay the vote until final site and building plans were submitted or until the panel's December meeting. The motion failed 4-8 after Vice Chair Stuart Levenbach, a Trump appointee, said the project's backers faced a time constraint and wanted a decision that day.
The National Park Service also approved the project Thursday. Administration officials have said crews would work 20 hours a day, year-round, for two to three years, and the Justice Department said above-ground work could begin no earlier than May 2027.
Planned for a highway roundabout across the Potomac from the Lincoln Memorial, close to the cemetery's entrance and to the final approach for Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, the arch would top Paris's Arc de Triomphe by more than 80 feet. Critics say it would shade some graves and spoil historic views; the administration says it would honor veterans.
White House vows to fight
White House spokesperson Davis Ingle blamed an activist court and said the administration expects to be vindicated as the case proceeds. On Friday the White House unveiled a website for what it now calls the Military Triumphal Arch, describing space for snipers on an observation deck and a base designed to launch drones.
Democrats, who won control of Congress in Tuesday's midterm elections and take the majority in January, have pledged to block and investigate the arch. Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia has a bill to prohibit and defund it with 80 co-sponsors, a number he expects to reach at least 200, and Rep. Jared Huffman of California warned officials and firms they could face legal risk.
Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, which represents the veterans, said Congress does not need to act because it never approved the arch, leaving the decision to the courts, though he said additional legislative steps would be welcome.
