Judge blocks Trump’s 250-foot DC arch within an hour of panel of allies approving plans

A federal judge has temporarily blocked Donald Trump’s administration from constructing a 250-foot “triumphal” arch that the president wants to use as a “top-grade military complex” to tower over Washington, D.C.The late Thursday decision from District Judge Tanya Chutkan arrived within an hour of a federal planning commission filled with Trump’s allies approving the plans, following several hours of public comments urging the panel to reject it.The National Capital Planning Commission, which the president has stuffed with his appointments, approved the project around 10.30pm despite lengthy public testimony calling on the commission to avoid being a rubber stamp and demands from members of Congress and veterans groups who are suing the administration to shut it down.Chutkan’s order bars the administration from working on the project for at least two weeks while a legal battle plays out. The latest developments also followed a series of court filings in the legal battles against the project that suggest construction could begin imminently near Memorial Circle across from Arlington National Cemetery, though the costs and burden on taxpayers still remains unclear. In court filings, the administration said a firm had been prepared to begin “construction mobilization” as soon as the commission signed off on the plans.Protesters gathered at the site on Thursday holding up mock displays of the arch with a massive red “X” across it and signs reading “stop the Arc de Trump.”Michael Lemmon, the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit opposing construction of the project, told the commission that construction is “flatly unlawful” without explicit congressional authorization, which it has not received.As protesters gathered at the site, a federal commission approved a 250-foot arch that Donald Trump wants near Memorial Circle and Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, DC (Reuters)The monument would also compromise “sacred ground” at adjoining Arlington National Cemetery, where tens of thousands of U.S. military veterans are buried, Lemmon said.Constructing a monument that overshadows “hallowed ground” for U.S. service members is “frankly blasphemous,” said Lemmon, who is among Vietnam War veterans suing to stop the project.The administration’s planning efforts have been “leading to a predetermined outcome” at the “deliberate exclusion of Congress,” which the panel has “abandoned to accommodate the president’s personal wishes, according to Lemmon.D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, who sits on the National Capital Planning Commission, repeatedly pressed administration officials during Thursday’s meeting to explain why, exactly, the president needs to build it — and what purpose it serves.Asked why the capital needs Trump’s arch, Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde told Mendelson that it will “commemorate and celebrate our nation, and we need this arch.”In the wake of Republicans’ seismic losses in midterm elections, the president has moved aggressively to complete his legacy D.C. projects, including staging a ceremony for the installation of a steel beam at an under-construction White House ballroom and holding a signing ceremony in the Oval Office to designate the room a federally protected landmark.The 250-foot project is at the center of federal lawsuits from veterans groups and DC officials (Reuters)The president has spent the last year promoting plans for the arch, which he compared Wednesday to the “Arc de Triomphe, but better” and “more beautiful actually, much more beautiful,” he said of the Parisian monument. Trump’s version would be 80 feet taller.The administration has argued that the project would fulfill a century-old congressional vision for a landmark at the site. Mark Paoletta, a White House official who chairs the commission, said during Thursday’s meeting that leaving an empty space at the site “dishonors our veterans and leaves a key monumental gateway to Arlington that Congress authorized uncompleted.”“This is a national disgrace,” he said.But the president, top Cabinet secretaries and Department of Justice officials have also argued that the arch must be built to fend off drones and serve other vital “national security” purposes.The Trump administration has repeatedly invoked “national security” arguments to push plans for his pet projects, including constructing a ballroom at the site of the former East Wing of the White House, which he demolished.In court filings, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin outlined plans for a militarized arch that can deploy snipers and counter drones and target other “continuously evolving” threats.“The Arch is a generational national defense opportunity to mitigate these evolving threats,” Hegseth wrote to the court. “It will be utilized as a dual-purpose structure: a major national monument that also incorporates military utility to support Homeland defense.”The monument will also house “counter sniper personnel,” he said.Mullin argued that the administration needs a “centralized and elevated infrastructure node at a key geographic location” for drone “detection” as well as “disruption and mitigation.”Interior Department official Gregory Wischer would not elaborate on the military’s plans for the project but told the panel on Thursday that “the current arch design is capable of hosting the national security functions as outlined by the president.”Nothing in the administration’s submission to the commission references the military. Newly released site maps and visual renderings from the Department of Interior also don’t include any information about Trump’s proposed “military” features.But Paoletta said the “purpose” of the monument is not part of the commission’s review process.Top Trump administration officials have outlined plans to use the arch to fight off drones, deploy snipers and serve other vital ‘national security’ purposes — none of which were in the documents approved by federal planners on November 5 (Reuters)The president unveiled plans for the monument last year with renderings that strongly resembled the Arc de Triomphe and the Soldiers and Sailors’ Memorial Arch in Brooklyn with the president’s favored neoclassical architectural style that dominates his D.C. projects.Asked by journalists at the White House last year who the project is for, Trump replied: “Me.”.During a court hearing last week, the judge overseeing the lawsuit against the project asked why the administration is moving so quickly, “apart from the executive’s desire to bedazzle the city.”“What is the harm of waiting?” Judge asked during the hearing on October 30. “What is the rush to put this arch up?”Deputy Assistant Attorney General Robert Stander told her the arch is an “absolutely a high priority project.”Officials in Washington, D.C. and Virginia sued the administration the next day, arguing that the structure failed to obtain congressional authorization and is moving forward with a proposed height that is “nearly double” the legal limit for buildings in the nation’s capital.“It is entirely foreseeable that, once construction begins, Defendants will argue — as they have done in other cases — that an order halting construction would irreparably harm the federal government,” plaintiffs wrote. “The Court should not allow this cynical gambit to succeed.”The arch joins a series of taxpayer-funded projects across the nation’s capital as the president seeks to build a legacy that outlasts his presidency (AFP/Getty)Hegseth’s top aide Ricky Buria told the panel on Thursday that the monument and its location “honors our veterans, honors our heroes, and really just shows to those past and present in our uniformed service that we will do anything for them.”“This is exactly what we need to see at this circle,” he said.Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman, among members of Congress who have pushed the commission to block the plans, said Trump’s arch would “dishonor America, our ideals and our laws.”The commission should vote against it, he argued, “rather than indulging in a president who thinks he is a king.”The structure would “disrupt the solemn connection between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Security” and instead invoke “emperors and kings who build grand projects to themselves.”“This is a tribute to Donald Trump,” Huffman said. “He has told us that specifically.”