Nine members of the Kennedy political family asked a judge Tuesday to halt President Trump’s plan to construct a 250-foot (76-meter) memorial arch, arguing that the towering structure would cast a shadow over their relatives’ graves at Arlington National Cemetery.
The proposed shadow would “fundamentally alter the experience of visiting the gravesites,” the family members said.
They filed a motion seeking to intervene in two existing lawsuits that aim to stop construction of the arch.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan last week barred the Trump administration from breaking ground on the project for 14 days.
The nine plaintiffs are children and grandchildren of Robert F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy, the brothers of slain President John F. Kennedy. Both men served in the U.S. Senate.
Their relatives are buried near the eternal flame marking JFK’s gravesite, alongside two other memorials that attract millions of visitors to Arlington each year.
Constructing the arch would amount to a “permanent denigration” of the gravesites, the relatives’ lawyers wrote. The Kennedy descendants “would never again be able to appreciate both sites as they always have before, and as the Kennedy family always intended.”
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The plaintiffs are represented by veteran Washington attorney Norm Eisen and the Democracy Defenders Fund.
“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,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said.
“The judiciary should not be abused to politicize a structure designed to unite our nation.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s secretary of health and human services, did not join the lawsuit. He has a strained relationship with many members of his family.
The arch is one of several Washington projects pursued by the Republican president as he reshapes the capital according to his preferences — from renovating one of the city’s historic public golf courses to threatening to demolish the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Those initiatives could soon come under heightened scrutiny after Democrats took control of Congress in the midterm elections.
The White House last week launched a lavish new website promoting the arch, which is planned as a structure of gold ornamentation and gray granite rising between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.