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WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump faces a new lawsuit as construction continues in the nation’s capital.
A coalition of six preservation and cultural organizations filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on June 15 over the president’s plan to build a statue garden in West Potomac Park on the National Mall. The group argued that the garden site violates federal law and is not authorized by Congress.
The National Garden of American Heroes project will commemorate the 250th anniversary of American independence and will feature 250 statues of historical figures from America’s past who have contributed to America’s cultural, scientific, economic, and political heritage.
USA TODAY has reached out to the White House for comment.
West Potomac Park, located between the Lincoln Memorial and the Jefferson Memorial and home to the famous 100-year-old Japanese cherry tree, was described by President Trump in a May 15 Truth Social post as “an utter waste of prime waterfront real estate along our mighty Potomac River.”
“The West Potomac Project is illegal. Congress has made clear that the National Mall is a ‘substantially completed work of civic art,’ not a personal sandbox that each president can renovate as he pleases,” the groups argued in the lawsuit. “To this end, the Legislature has determined that no new “memorial works” may be installed within the “major cross axis of the mall,” the area that includes West Potomac Park.”
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is the latest in a series of lawsuits challenging several construction projects the president has supported in Washington, D.C., including the White House Ballroom, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
President Trump first pushed for construction of the garden in 2020 through an executive order to be completed by July 4, 2026. That order was rescinded the following year by former President Joe Biden.
Within 10 days of retaking the White House, President Trump revived the plan. On January 29, 2025, he established the White House Task Force to Celebrate America’s 250th Anniversary and reinstated the 2020 order for gardens. The order also requires the project’s schedule to be changed “as expeditiously as possible.”
The lawsuit alleges the project violates federal laws, including the Monuments Act and the National Historic Preservation Act.
In July 2025, Congress appropriated $40 million to the National Endowment for the Humanities, available through fiscal year 2028, “for the procurement of the statues described in President Trump’s executive order.”
The NEH, which solicited grant applications from aspiring artists last April, said the prize money for each life-size statue is up to $200,000 and must be made of marble, granite, bronze, copper or brass. Celebrities named in the statue include boxer Muhammad Ali, women’s rights activist Susan B. Anthony, jazz singer Louis Armstrong, chef and author Julia Child, and astronaut Neil Armstrong.
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is USA TODAY’s White House correspondent. You can follow her at X @SwapnaVenugopal.
