Nine family members of the Kennedy political dynasty asked a judge Tuesday to block President Donald Trump's plan to build a towering memorial arch, saying the 250-foot (76-meter) structure would cast a shadow over their relatives' gravesites at Arlington National Cemetery.
The shadow would “fundamentally alter the experience of visiting the gravesites,” the relatives argued. They filed a motion to intervene in two existing lawsuits seeking to block construction of the arch.
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U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan last week prohibited the Trump administration from breaking ground on the structure for 14 days.
The nine Kennedy family members who filed suit are children and grandchildren of Robert F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy, brothers of the slain U.S. president John F. Kennedy, both of whom served in the U.S. Senate. They are buried close to the eternal flame that marks JFK's gravesite, a trio of memorials that are a major draw for the millions of people who visit the Arlington cemetery each year.
Building the arch would be a “permanent denigration” of the gravesites, and the Kennedy offspring “would never again be able to appreciate both sites as they always have before, and as the Kennedy family always intended," lawyers for the relatives wrote. They are represented by veteran Washington lawyer Norm Eisen and 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,” said White House spokesperson Davis Ingle. “The judiciary should not be abused to politicize a structure designed to unite our nation.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump's health and human services secretary who has a fractured relationship with many of his relatives, did not join the lawsuit.
The arch is one of several projects around Washington that the Republican president has undertaken as he alters the capital to his tastes — from renovating one of its storied public golf courses to threatening to demolish the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Those projects could soon face intense scrutiny after Democrats gained control of Congress in the midterm elections.
The White House last week unveiled a glitzy new website to showcase the arch, which is slated to rise in a mass of gold ornamentation and stately gray granite between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.
