Nine members of the Kennedy political dynasty asked a federal judge Tuesday to block President Trump's planned 250-foot memorial arch at Arlington, claiming the structure would cast a shadow over their family's gravesites — and in doing so, put the question of who controls public memorial space to the test: the American people, or a family that has treated a national cemetery like a private estate.
The Kennedy relatives filed a motion to intervene in two existing lawsuits brought by the District of Columbia, Virginia, and Vietnam War veteran and former ambassador Michael Lemmon. US District Judge Tanya Chutkan already blocked the Trump administration from breaking ground for 14 days last week, shortly after a planning board with a Trump-aligned majority voted to approve the project.
The arch, modeled on Paris's Arc de Triomphe and topped with a Lady Liberty-like winged figure, would rise on Memorial Circle between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. At 250 feet, it would stand more than twice the height of the Lincoln Memorial. The Kennedys argue it would obstruct the sight line from the JFK Eternal Flame memorial across the Arlington Memorial Bridge to the Lincoln Memorial — a view they call "an essential element" of the design — and "fundamentally alter the experience of visiting" their family's gravesites.
Rory Kennedy and Maxwell Kennedy issued a statement calling it about "protecting sacred spaces that belong to the American people." But the lawsuit's core claim is more parochial: that the arch would be a "permanent denigration" of the Kennedy gravesites, and that the family "would never again be able to appreciate both sites as they always have before, and as the Kennedy family always intended."
The family is represented by veteran Washington lawyer Norm Eisen and the Democracy Defenders Fund. The complaint argues the National Park Service and the Interior Department authorized construction without the required congressional approval. Trump has claimed the arch will include a "top-grade military complex" with drone and ammunition storage and customized sniper facilities on the roof and plaza. The Justice Department has said construction would not be completed until after Trump's second term.
White House spokesperson Davis Ingle pushed back: "It is unfortunate to see that some members of the Kennedy family have joined the litigation against the Arch as the project is intended to honor our heroes who rest in Arlington Cemetery. The judiciary should not be abused to politicize a structure designed to unite our nation."
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose fractured relationship with his relatives is well known, did not join the suit.
The Guardian framed the arch as "gilded" and emphasized its ornamental design; NBC called it "triumphal" and highlighted the Kennedy Center spat; the New York Post noted the arch's "gold ornamentation and stately gray granite" and pointed out that Democrats' midterm gains could bring greater scrutiny. None of the outlets dwelled on the fact that the Kennedys are effectively claiming a property interest in the sight lines of a public cemetery.
The arch is one of several Trump projects remaking the capital's landscape, alongside a golf course renovation and his attempted takeover — and subsequent closure — of the Kennedy Center. Democrats who just won control of Congress are expected to intensify scrutiny of all of them.
The question the court will have to answer: does one family's claim on a view trump the public's right to build on public land?
