President Donald Trump is breaking ground on his 250-foot-tall triumphal arch near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, even before a federal review panel has approved the project.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Thursday announced plans for the excavation work.

“After a very long wait (over 125 years!), we are preparing to start, over the next two-week period, the excavation work necessary for the Great Triumphal Arch,” he wrote in a social media post, adding: “This will be one of the Great Pieces of American Architecture, honoring the history and significance of Arlington Cemetery and befitting the most powerful Capital in the World.”

The rush to push ahead with work on the arch follows a familiar pattern for Trump, who has frequently embarked on large-scale changes to historic properties in Washington without approvals from Congress or anyone else. And it comes days after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the administration to continue building a ballroom on the site of the demolished East Wing. Preservation organizations trying to block the president’s other construction projects had feared that the ruling would embolden the president to disregard those other legal challenges, too.

In this case, Trump has proposed building a 250-foot triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery that he has said must be taller than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. He has said the arch is meant to celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, though he has also said that the arch is for himself.

The Commission of Fine Arts approved the design in May, even after the president rejected the panel’s suggestion to make the structure smaller by removing a towering, winged angel and two golden eagles. The administration has done preliminary testing of the site and has awarded $500,000 to an Oregon-based firm for an environmental assessment.

But Trump’s plans have not received final approval from the National Capital Planning Commission, which has authority over building projects on federally owned land in Washington. That panel, which met Thursday, is not scheduled to meet again until Oct. 1. The arch has also not completed its review under the National Historic Preservation Act, another legal requirement.

Last week, the National Park Service published a final report acknowledging that the arch would disrupt the views and symbolism of dozens of other historically significant sites around the capital. And the park service has told outside organizations participating in that process that it intends to meet next week to continue discussing how to mitigate those effects.

Burgum’s announcement suggests that the administration now feels emboldened not just to disregard a lawsuit challenging the arch, but also multiple legal requirements that it had previously committed to following.

“This demonstrates that they’ve never really taken seriously what they’ve been saying to the court, which is ‘allow the process to work itself out,’” said Nicolas Sansone, an attorney with Public Citizen Litigation Group and the lead attorney for the plaintiffs challenging the arch. That process, he said, has not worked itself out. “And yet here they are announcing to the American people that they’re proceeding with construction.”

The administration has previously committed in that lawsuit to provide 14 days of notice in a legal filing that it intended to start construction. Instead, Sansone said, that notice arrived via social media.

Trump last month named Mark Paoletta, a lawyer in his administration and a close associate of Justice Clarence Thomas, to lead the planning commission reviewing the arch.

“This project is not even close to being ready for primetime,” said Rep. Donald S. Beyer Jr., D-Va., whose district includes nearby Arlington National Cemetery. “The administration has not won the legal battle over the proposal, which is plainly illegal without congressional authorization.”

Beyer said Trump and Burgum were “disregarding the risks and rushing this towering monument to Trump’s vanity because they believe Republicans will get crushed in November.”

The project is facing a legal challenge. A group of Vietnam War veterans has sued to stop construction, citing the lack of congressional approval for the project and arguing that the arch would obstruct the view between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.

But a recent Supreme Court ruling, which allowed construction of Trump’s planned ballroom to proceed, means that preservation groups could have a hard time achieving the legal standing to sue. Democrats have suggested that if they retake the House after the midterm elections, they could sue to stop the president’s construction projects that have bypassed Congress.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which has studied the arch project to assess its impact on a busy flight path in and out of Washington, has recommended that red, blinking obstruction lights similar to the ones atop the Washington Monument be added to the design — a common measure for large structures that go up near airports.

Trump has not said whether he would follow that safety recommendation.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Luke Broadwater/Eric Lee
c. 2026 The New York Times Company