Trump rebrands Columbia Island arch as military base to evade law
By Adele Rutherford · Reporting from Atlanta ·
Donald Trump reclassified his proposed D.C. arch as a military complex to bypass preservation reviews, corrupting executive process and inviting administrative overreach.
The monument becomes a base
The rule of law is not a coat you put on when the weather turns and take off when it gets warm. It is the framework that prevents public power from becoming personal whim. Last September, President Donald Trump made an announcement about his proposed 250-foot Triumphal Arch on Columbia Island. The structure would no longer serve merely as a tourist attraction and a tribute to the United States' 250th anniversary. Instead, he declared on Truth Social that the structure would serve as a "top grade Military Complex." The plan calls to "house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas." It also adds large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum soon announced on social media that excavation would begin at the "Great Triumphal Arch and Military Observation Deck." This sharp pivot is not a security policy; it is a legal shield hastily nailed to a vanity project.
The administration initially unveiled the arch in October 2025. Trump told reporters it was being built to honor himself. Veterans and historic preservationists filed lawsuits challenging the project's lack of Congressional approval. Critics also questioned its proximity to Arlington National Cemetery and local building height limits. The project ran into the unyielding gravel of administrative procedure. The executive branch refused to submit to the National Capital Planning Commission and federally required historic preservation reviews. Instead, it simply rebranded the limestone souvenir as a forward operating base. Charles Birnbaum, CEO and founding president of the Cultural Landscape Foundation, described the administrative whiplash to npr.org. Taking a resource not about security and turning it on its head means returning to square one. The public is now reviewing an entirely different facility. That is not how a constitutional republic builds infrastructure.
The construction of the Pentagon
To understand the administrative sleight of hand at work here, one must look to the construction of the Pentagon. The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II under the undeniable pressure of global conflict. The parallel relies on an urgent national security justification to accelerate constructing a massive military facility in the D.C. area. Yet the historic parallel exposes the pretense of the current endeavor. The Pentagon was an indispensable command center built during a world war. The nation faced an actual existential threat to its survival. The Columbia Island arch is a monument first pitched to celebrate the nation's semiquincentennial and the president's ego. It was retrofitted with combat capabilities only after zoning and historic preservation boards began asking uncomfortable questions.
The administration attempts to justify this legal shortcut by pointing to a 1925 law allowing for two 166-foot columns. It treats a century-old statute as an eternal blank check for whatever masonry catches the executive fancy. That reasoning would make the other side weep if it were applied by their opponents. A government might bypass Congressional appropriations and historic preservation laws by declaring that a tourist gazebo now stores ammunition. Procedure then ceases to be a guardrail and becomes a prop. Even within the Republican coalition, the pretext has strained credulity. Senior House appropriator Representative Mike Simpson of Idaho told Politico that if it were his choice, he would not put any money into the arch. He noted that federal funding is already short for actual military needs. He demanded that the administration come to Congress for a proper appropriation if it intends to use public dollars. When social media decrees bypass the power of the purse, the separation of powers becomes a mere aesthetic choice.
The FAA clearance collapses
The safety implications of this makeshift military pivot are as reckless as the legal theory. The Federal Aviation Administration previously released findings that the arch would not pose a risk to airspace near Washington's main airport. However, that narrow clearance evaluated only a passive observation deck, gift shop, and cafe. Active drone launching sites and sniper positions sit directly in the landing path of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. That fundamentally alters the safety calculus. Representative Don Beyer, a Virginia Democrat, rightly stated to NBC News that putting a drone launching site directly in the landing path for DCA is a stupid, dangerous, and unworkable idea. He added that if Trump pursues it, the FAA's prior safety study becomes obsolete. Harold Hongju Koh, a former State Department legal advisor and Yale Law School professor, diagnosed the maneuver precisely. He called the justification laughable and pretextual. He asked why the administration needs an arch at all if national security dangers require mobile protections immediately.
The long record of executive overreach predicts precisely how this dispute will be litigated. The playbook relies on stretching the definition of national security until it covers any project the legislature refuses to fund. We saw this in the southern border wall emergency declarations and past attempts to bypass appropriations. Center for Strategic International Studies military expert Mark Cancian noted that the underground White House bunker reflects a widely accepted, bipartisan need to protect the executive. By contrast, no security need has been articulated for a tourist arch on a traffic island. The administration cannot simply dress up a monument in camouflage and demand that the courts look the other way. Legitimacy is a capital stock that spends fast and refills slowly. Trading institutional integrity for a 250-foot vanity project leaves the nation poorer and more divided.
The executive branch must submit its unbudgeted military-arch hybrid to Congress for explicit authorization. Otherwise, the federal courts must halt excavation until every historic and aviation review is performed anew.