General Discussion

A group of Vietnam veterans sued the Trump administration on Thursday in an attempt to block the construction of the White House’s planned arch across from the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery.

In the nearly 20-page lawsuit, the veterans say construction of a 250-foot structure in Memorial Circle, the traffic roundabout at the entrance to the Arlington Memorial Bridge, requires congressional and environmental approval before work begins. They also allege the new feature would increase traffic and obstruct the view of Arlington National Cemetery.

“It will block historically significant reciprocal views between those two memorials that were consciously designed and that have existed for nearly a century,” the lawsuit reads. “It will dominate the views of and the relationship between the surrounding memorials … disrupting the historic and symbolic link between the two.”

The veterans, Michael Lemmon, Shaun Byrnes and Jon Gundersen, along with retired Virginia historian Calder Loth enlisted the legal support of the nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen in suing both the Office of the President and President Donald Trump personally, along with the National Park Service and Domestic Policy Counsel Director Vince Haley.

Trump revealed initial plans for a triumphal arch that would resemble Paris’ Arc de Triomphe, late last year, telling Politico in December that construction would begin “sometime in the next two months.”