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Kennedy Family Unites to Stop Trump’s Biggest Pet Project

The vanity construction is likely to impact nearby sacred sites.

The Kennedy family has united in a new legal attempt to prevent President Donald Trump’s latest pet project from casting a shadow over their legacy.

Trump, 80, wants to build a 250-foot triumphal arch on Memorial Circle, across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial. Based on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, it has been nicknamed the “Arc de Trump,” and would be twice the size of the Lincoln Memorial.

However, critics have pointed out the impact Trump’s giant arch would have on nearby Washington monuments and memorials, including the John F. Kennedy Eternal Flame grave site in the Arlington National Cemetery.

An analysis by The Washington Post found that, for up to nine minutes, 18 days a year, Trump’s colossal vanity arch would cast a shadow over the eternal flame.

Nine members of the Kennedy family filed a lawsuit on Tuesday to try to stop the arch from being built, according to a new Post report.

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The lawsuit cites the shadow that would be cast on the former president’s grave site, as well as other graves in the nearby cemetery, where thousands of military dead are buried and remembered.

The legal action follows a federal judge’s temporary halt to construction on Trump’s vanity project, citing the Post’s previous report on the shadows that would be cast.

The nine family members comprise ex-Democratic Congressman Joe Kennedy, seven of the surviving children of Robert and Ethel Kennedy (but not Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.), and Edward Kennedy Jr.

“President Donald J. Trump is attempting to unlawfully erect a massive arch that will permanently cast shadows over and damage historically significant sight lines to the existing gravesites and memorials established in the Kennedy family’s honor at Arlington National Cemetery, as well as to the memorials of hundreds of thousands of fallen American heroes,” the family’s lawsuit states.

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Rory Kennedy, 57, and Maxwell Kennedy, 61, said the legal request was about “protecting sacred spaces,” and stated that Trump had “violated the laws and procedures established by Congress to protect this most sacred national memorial.”

“A towering arch casting shadows across the graves of our father, mother, and uncles, as well as the graves of so many who have served our country, would also cast a shadow over our democratic principles, undermining the safeguards established by our elected representatives to protect this hallowed ground for generations to come,” the Kennedys said in a statement to NBC.

The White House slammed the “activist district court” that paused construction of the arch.

“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,” spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement to the Post. “The judiciary should not be abused to politicize a structure designed to unite our nation.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

Trump’s Interior Department, which is in charge of managing the construction, insisted last month that the arch would impact only a small area of the cemetery, and only for around two weeks a year.

“That period is less than an hour after sunrise, at which point shadows are very lengthened and distorted, and are mingled with the long shadows of trees,” the department said in a statement to the Post.

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Paul Eaton, a retired U.S. Army major general whose parents are buried in the cemetery, said a shadow covering parts of the cemetery is tantamount to “a sacrilege.”

“There are a lot of families out there who are going to visit their loved one and just be overwhelmed by the shadow of this vanity project to Trump,” he told the Post.

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Trump has already angered the Kennedy family multiple times in his second presidency.

He paved over former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy’s historic Rose Garden lawn, claiming that women had complained about their high heels getting stuck in the grass.

After installing a board of allies to run the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, Trump insisted his name be added to the facade of the once-prestigious arts venue.

Several music acts then canceled shows, and Trump threatened to bulldoze the venue in a fit of pique after a judge ordered Trump’s name removed.

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