A federal judge temporarily halted President Trump's Triumphal Arch after capital planners approved it, a decision the White House branded the work of an activist court.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan issued an order pausing construction for 14 days on the arch planned between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, not long after the National Capital Planning Commission voted to approve the plans.
Breitbart News reported the freeze Friday, after D.C. and Virginia sued the administration over the project last month. The White House had framed the privately funded monument as a tribute timed to 250 years of American greatness.
Chutkan wrote that the jurisdictions had shown construction would clog traffic, impede disaster preparedness, and harm the environment, forcing them to spend money to monitor and mitigate those effects. She called the harm certain and the costs significant and unrecoverable.
In the memorandum opinion filed with the order, the judge laid out the claimed injuries to D.C. and Virginia's proprietary interests.
Judge Chutkan wrote that the plaintiffs
"have shown that construction of the Arch will cause harm by ‘clogging traffic, impeding disaster preparedness, and harming the environment,’ which will also ‘require both jurisdictions to expend resources to monitor and mitigate those impacts.’"
She added two direct findings on the injury standard.
Chutkan stated,
"First, the harm is certain,"
and
"Second, the District and Virginia will incur significant unrecoverable costs."
She rejected any suggestion those costs were the plaintiffs' own doing. Chutkan wrote,
"These are not self-inflicted costs. When federal action causes a state to undertake ‘expenditures to mitigate and recover from harms that could have been prevented’ absent that action, the state suffers an injury to its proprietary interests,"
The 14-day pause leaves the project on hold while the lawsuit moves forward. The order followed the National Capital Planning Commission's full approval of the plans.
White House spokesperson Davis Ingle answered the ruling by praising the planning commission and rejecting the freeze.
Ingle said,
"The White House commends the National Capital Planning Commission’s decision to fully approve President Trump’s historic vision to build a much needed Triumphal Arch in Washington, D.C. An activist district court thereafter blocked the construction of the project."
He tied the monument to the nation's founding anniversary and said the administration expects to win.
Ingle added,
"We are confident we will be fully vindicated as this litigation proceeds and look forward to seeing the completion of this magnificent Arch, a tribute to 250 years of American greatness,"
That framing matches the White House's earlier public rollout. In January the White House called the project the "Independence Arch." In February it said the arch would form part of Trump's legacy before the country marked America's 250th birthday in July.
In April, President Trump unveiled a rendering of the arch. The design showed two eagles flanking a winged Lady Liberty-like figure standing over the words "One Nation Under God," with golden lions seated at its base. The model resembled Paris's Arc de Triomphe.
By early September, Breitbart News reported that work was set to begin in the next two weeks. That account said the landmark would be privately funded and had already received early approval from the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts.
D.C. and Virginia then sued the administration last month. After the National Capital Planning Commission voted to approve the plans, Chutkan's temporary halt followed. The White House statement came after that ruling.
The sequence is straightforward on the record available. The Commission of Fine Arts gave early approval. The National Capital Planning Commission later voted full approval. A privately funded arch, presented as a tribute to a quarter-millennium of the country, cleared those boards.
D.C. and Virginia answered with a lawsuit claiming traffic backups, disaster-preparedness problems, environmental harm, and monitoring costs. Chutkan accepted those showings as certain injury and unrecoverable expense, and she paused construction for two weeks.
Ingle's response put the conflict in plain terms: planning approval on one side, what the White House called an activist district court on the other, and an administration vowing to finish a monument it links to American greatness.
A temporary order does not end the case. It does stop work at a site between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery while the dispute continues. The White House says it expects full vindication and a completed arch. The jurisdictions that sued say they face real costs if building goes forward now.
When a privately funded tribute to 250 years of the country clears the capital's planning boards and still gets frozen over traffic and mitigation claims, voters can judge which side is protecting the public interest, and which side is delaying a monument to American greatness.
