Trump's 'surprise' announcement about 'Great Triumphal Arch' is all the 'Rocket Docket' needs to stop his 'feverish pace,' lawsuit demands

Main: Trump officials are hoping to build the 250-foot-tall arch in Memorial Circle near Arlington National Cemetery on Oct. 1, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Photo by Olivier Douliery/Abaca/Sipa USA(Sipa via AP Images). Center inset: President Donald Trump boards Air Force One, Wednesday, May 20, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md., en route to speak at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy commencement. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin).

A new lawsuit to stop the Trump administration's "feverish pace" in constructing a "Great Triumphal Arch" across from Arlington National Cemetery has landed on the so-called "Rocket Docket."

Exactly one week after military veterans and activists protested the 250-foot proposed arch at Memorial Circle, the left-leaning group Democracy Forward filed a lawsuit Thursday in the Eastern District of Virginia on behalf of the Arlington County Board.

Separate from Vietnam War veterans' pending lawsuit in Washington, D.C., to stop the arch, the new case began by cataloging the administration's "priority to remake the physical landscape of the Nation's Capital in President Trump's image and based on his whims, destroying treasured public spaces in the process."

The complaint referenced the president's teardown of the East Wing of the White House to build a ballroom with national security fixtures, his remaking of the Rose Garden, his closure and threatened demolition of the Kennedy Center, and his administration's failure to pin the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool "botched renovation" on an innocent Olympian.

The suit said Trump's "surprise" after-the-fact announcement that the proposed arch would also be a "top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch" to "house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers" was just the latest proof that the construction project will "cause significant harm to Arlington County and its residents."

An artistic rendering of the arch-to-be shared by Secretary Doug Burgum (Department of Interior).

"Construction of the Arch will harm public safety in Arlington by clogging thoroughfares needed for emergency transport services run by the County, including emergency services for Arlington National Cemetery and secondary emergency services for nearby Reagan National Airport," the complaint said. "It threatens to increase noise and air pollution in Arlington by necessitating the diversion of certain flights into and out of Reagan National Airport. And it will significantly and detrimentally affect many historic properties in Arlington, including Arlington National Cemetery."

"Using the Arch to store large stockpiles of ammunition and as a staging point for drones and snipers, so close to commuters and tourists," the suit went on, "will dramatically worsen these public-safety harms and the risk of accidents."

And all of that could occur without the administration taking the "hard look" that's required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), to "consider the many ways the project will harm the human environment, including its historic, cultural, and aesthetic impacts, and to evaluate reasonable alternatives and mitigation measures," the lawsuit said.

As a result, the plaintiff board is asking a court to declare the project "arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law" under the Administrative Procedure Act, and to "vacate and set aside" the government's apparent attempt to short-circuit the process.

Arlington County Board Chair Matt de Ferranti said in a statement that the lawsuit was brought because his "community has the most to lose from this egregious and unlawful proposed project."

"We have diligently and in good faith engaged in the review process, pointing out severe, unique, and wide-ranging negative impacts to the county and our residents. Despite these concerns and that process not being complete, it was recently, unilaterally, announced that the project will move forward anyway—entirely disregarding protocol and months of work. Enough is enough," de Ferranti said.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, a named defendant, said in a Sept. 3 post that the administration was "preparing to start over the next two-week period" — and absent congressional authorization — "the excavation work necessary for the Great Triumphal Arch and Military Observation Deck, at Memorial Circle on Columbia Island between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery."

That led the judge in the Washington, D.C., lawsuit to order that the administration provide her 48 hours' notice of "activities related to or in preparation for the construction of an arch on Memorial Circle."

Later on Friday, the docket in the Arlington County Board's case said the lawsuit was assigned to U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff, a Joe Biden appointee.