Vietnam War veterans suing over President Trump’s proposed triumphal arch are asking a US court for an emergency order to stop the administration from moving ahead with plans to begin work in the Washington, D.C. area.

Veterans Michael Lemmon, Shaun Byrnes and Jon Gundersen, along with architectural historian Calder Loth, filed an application for a temporary restraining order shortly after Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said excavation would start within the next two weeks.

Veterans Challenge project without Congress’s approval

The group said the Trump administration was proceeding without the approval it considers legally required, arguing that Congress must authorise the design and siting of commemorative works and other structures on federal land in the national capital.

They are continuing a months-long legal campaign against the administration, which they say is pushing the arch forward before a judge can decide whether the project is lawful.

Earlier lawsuit targets 250-foot monument

Lemmon, Byrnes, Gundersen and Loth first challenged the scheme in a February lawsuit seeking to halt efforts to build a 250-foot arch, which Trump has said would be the largest in the world. The National Park Service has supported a proposed location at Memorial Circle across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial.

The claimants also argue that the size of the arch would block or alter important historical sightlines linking the Lincoln Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery and Arlington House. In early August, the National Park Service concluded that the monument would have “adverse effects” on multiple historic sites and on the skyline of the nation’s capital.

In their latest filing on Friday, the veterans’ lawyers accused the administration of trying to ensure the project becomes irreversible—before the matter reaches a decision by US District Judge Tanya Chutkan—by moving quickly ahead of that ruling.

Administration says upcoming work is archaeological

The administration said work scheduled for the next two weeks would not involve construction. Instead, it said the plans call for an archaeological survey using four test pits, intended to help the National Park Service meet preservation obligations, rather than any actual building activity.

“This activity is not construction, or demolition in preparation for construction, of an arch,” the administration said in a legal submission filed on Friday.

Chutkan has previously ordered the administration to provide 14 days’ notice before starting construction. The arch has also received preliminary approval, but not final approval, from the National Capital Planning Commission, and a historic preservation review is under way.

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5 September 2026

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Does it ever stop? Trump comes up with a beanbrain idea that will collapse in on itself before it's ever completed. But then immediately come the reactors who rush in to court and begin one after another of these endless PR exercises that also waste our time. I just wish we could build a new capital on a remote Alaskan island and drop all these players on to it. Trump exhausted me within three months of taking office. The other side exhausted me about four months later. I want to go back. Back to FDR, (even) Truman, Eisenhower, and JFK. Things didn't use to be this bad.