When Ronn Easton, a Vietnam veteran, first learned of President Donald Trump’s plans to build a massive triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery he started losing sleep.
“The thought of that big, 250-foot monstrosity casting shadow on the graves of those heroes makes me sick to my stomach,” said Easton, who has visited Arlington 10 times.
As news came out in the lead up to Memorial Day that the Trump administration plans to proceed with building the arch without Congressional approval and has recently started surveying the proposed arch site, Easton called it “one big grift, another big con” hurting the American people.
“It's a slap in the face to veterans,” Easton said. “It's a slap in the face to the people who have made the ultimate sacrifice, so that [Trump] might be able to stand and grift and rip us off. That's how I see it.”
The arch’s proposed site is Memorial Circle, located between Arlington Memorial Bridge and Arlington National Cemetery. Its 250-foot height would make it the tallest triumphal arch in the world and tower above the 99-foot Lincoln Memorial.
The arch would feature gilded figures, including Lady Liberty and eagles, along with inscriptions of “One Nation Under God” and “Liberty and Justice for All.”
Easton started a petition last month, limited to veterans and their family members, calling to stop the arch and “protect Arlington’s sacred ground.” He collected nearly 3,500 signatures as of Thursday.
“I will sell my soul to stop this — that's how serious I am,” Easton said.
“I know the general public can't stand this, but this is about veterans. This is about the military, and that's the reason why I wanted the people who were affected the most by this [to sign].”
Easton has previously spoken out against the Trump administration’s cuts to the Department of Vetereans Affairs and killings by immigration enforcement agents in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area where he lives.
Three other Vietnam veterans and an architectural historian sued in February to stop the “unlawful” construction of the arch. They are represented by Public Citizen Litigation Group, part of the government accountability and consumer advocacy nonprofit.
“It's very important to our clients, who all have a very strong personal connection with Arlington National Cemetery and the area around which the arch is planned to be constructed, and I think they are not alone,” said Nick Sansone, a lawyer with Public Citizen Litigation Group.
On Thursday, Sansone said the group is “certainly planning to move forward with the lawsuit as expeditiously as possible.”
Public Citizen filed an opposition to the Trump administration’s motion to dismiss on May 12, and the administration was granted an extension to respond, Sansone said.
“We don't want another ballroom situation. We don't want a situation where we don't get any kind of guarantee from the government that they're not going to start building, and then all of a sudden they start building, and before we know it, we've got the foundations laid for an arch in the middle of the capital city,” Sansone said.
Demolition began on the East Wing of the White House in October to build a new ballroom, which Trump initially promised would be privately funded. On Wednesday, Senate Republicans removed a $1 billion Secret Service funding request from its immigration enforcement bill, which included funding for the ballroom.
In previous negotiations with the government, Public Citizen agreed to drop a preliminary injunction motion barring the government from starting work on the arch while the lawsuit is pending.
It did so “without prejudice,” meaning it can be renewed at any time, and in exchange, the government must provide 14 days’ notice on the public docket prior to beginning construction, Sansone said.
The Trump administration’s claim it can proceed with building the arch without Congressional approval is “wrong” and “incorrect as a matter of law,” Sansone said.
“Feelings run deep about the proper way to tell our national story in the nation's capital and the proper way to use monuments and commemorative structures to create a national narrative,” Sansone said.
“We live in a democracy, and that's precisely why those sorts of disputes need to be hashed out in our legislative body, the body that's representative of the diversity of American opinion, Congress, and shouldn't be up to the sort of unilateral decision making of a single president.”
Watching Thursday’s meeting of the Commission of Fine Arts was “infuriating” as the agency led by Trump appointees gave final approval to the arch with minor modifications, despite approximately 1,600 negative public comments, Sansone said.
“Any kind of Commission of Fine Arts consideration or approval or process is premature until Congress has initiated the procedure by authorizing this arch in the first place,” Sansone said.
“Watching the arch fly through the approval process in the face of that consistent negative feedback from the public just reinforces why it's important to have democratic buy-in for a project like this in the first place and why congressional authorization is not only legally necessary but also advisable as a matter of public policy.”
Easton compared Trump to a “rabid dog” marking its territory as Trump has pursued numerous projects to leave his touch on the capital city from the ballroom to the arch and painting the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool blue.
“He's spending all this money, except for where it's really needed. People are starving. People need health care. People need help,” Easton said.
