Nine Kennedys Sue to Stop Trump’s Arch Near Arlington. RFK Jr. Isn’t One of Them.

The day before Veterans Day, nine members of the Kennedy family went to federal court to stop the arch President Trump wants to build at the front door of Arlington National Cemetery. Their complaint says the 250-foot monument would throw a shadow across the graves of John, Robert and Ted Kennedy and block the view of JFK’s Eternal Flame from Memorial Bridge.

One Kennedy is missing from the list. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who runs the Department of Health and Human Services for Trump, didn’t sign on. Seven of his brothers and sisters did: Rory, Maxwell Taylor, Christopher, Kerry, Courtney, former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and former Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II. So did his nephew, former Rep. Joe Kennedy III, and his cousin Edward M. Kennedy Jr., Ted’s son.

Their 27-page filing, dated Tuesday, asks Judge Tanya Chutkan to let them join a fight that’s already underway. D.C. and Virginia sued on Oct. 31. Three veterans and an architectural historian sued back in February. The Kennedys want the same thing everyone else in the case wants: a court order that freezes the project until Congress votes on it.

A grave site the family paid for

The emotional core of the filing is the family’s own history on that hillside, and it’s real. JFK’s Eternal Flame has burned since his funeral in 1963. When Robert Kennedy was killed in 1968, the family buried him less than 100 feet from his brother, with a walkway between them. His wife, Ethel, lies with him, and Ted Kennedy is buried beside them. The complaint says the family paid every dollar of the work in the immediate grave area, $632,364, while the government paid for the paths around it.

The family says the 1963 design was built around one sightline. Standing on Memorial Bridge, you can look straight up the hill and see the flame. The architect’s plan said it had to be big enough to be seen from the Lincoln Memorial at night. Put a 250-foot arch in the traffic circle at the foot of that bridge, they argue, and the view is gone.

Then comes the shadow. The filing leans on what it calls a “forensic study,” which turns out to be a Washington Post graphics analysis from Oct. 27. It says the shadows would be worst in the early morning.

Read that boxed line twice. By the family’s own account, the shadow they’re suing over falls hardest before Arlington opens to the public. That’s the hour they say they like to visit. It isn’t when the public is there to see it.

Eisen’s name on page 27

Look at who signed it. The lawyer at the bottom of the filing is Norman Eisen, and the group is his Democracy Defenders Fund. Eisen was the House Democrats’ special counsel in Trump’s first impeachment. Since then his group has filed a string of lawsuits against the Trump administration.

That doesn’t make the family’s grief fake. It does tell you this is the same anti-Trump legal machine, with a famous last name added on the day before Veterans Day.

What the judge has already done

The arch cleared its last big approval on Nov. 5. The National Capital Planning Commission voted 8–4 for it, and the Park Service and Interior Department signed off on construction that same day. Chutkan stepped in right after. According to Lawfare’s rundown of the case, she issued a 33-page order for D.C. and Virginia that pauses any work for 14 days. She based it on one law, the Commemorative Works Act of 1986, which says Congress has to authorize new monuments on federal parkland in that part of Washington.

The administration has a real answer on that point. As unga.news reported last week, Interior argues Congress already approved a monument on that spot in 1925. The law that built Memorial Bridge adopted a plan for two 166-foot columns on the island. They were never built, and the arch’s main body is the same 166 feet tall. The fight is really over the statues and observation deck that take it to 250. Interior also says the city’s old 130-foot height cap was written for buildings, not for monuments like the Washington Monument or the Gateway Arch.

Veterans aren’t lined up on one side, either. Six veterans groups told Chutkan on Oct. 28 that they back the arch and oppose stopping it. They are the Vietnam Veterans of America, the Korean War Veterans Association, the Chosin Few, the Military Order of the Purple Heart, the National Vet Court Alliance and Veterans for America First. The Vietnam vets later said they don’t endorse the specific design, but they haven’t walked back their support for building it.

“Intended to honor our heroes”

The White House didn’t take the bait on the family drama. Spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement reported by the BBC that it was “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.”

“The judiciary should not be abused to politicize a structure designed to unite our nation,” Ingle said. “We will continue making the case for this beautiful and fitting monument and are confident we will be fully vindicated as this litigation proceeds.”

Trump first announced the Independence Arch in a White House fact sheet on Jan. 30 as a centerpiece for America’s 250th birthday. Trump has said it would double as a security post, with room for drones and snipers. Hegseth and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told the court in sworn statements that it would be a “dual purpose structure” with “military utility.”

The 14-day pause runs out later this month, and Chutkan is weighing a longer freeze. The Kennedys still need her permission just to join the case. Later this morning, Trump and the first lady are scheduled to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and he will speak to the nation’s veterans from Arlington, the same hillside the Kennedys say his arch would spoil.