A lawsuit is threatening President Trump’s plans for a “National Garden of American Heroes” in Washington, DC.
A group of “advocacy, conservation, and historic preservation organizations” filed the lawsuit, challenging the garden which would be placed in West Potomac Park. The National Parks Conservation Association is among the groups filing the lawsuit in addition to the “D.C. Preservation League, National Mall Coalition, Olmsted Network, the Committee of 100 on the Federal City, The Cultural Landscape Foundation, and D.C. resident Steve Longenecker,” per the organization.
The organization states that the proposed park “violates the Administrative Procedure Act based on non-compliance with, among other laws, the Commemorative Works Act, National Historic Preservation Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and National Park Service Organic Act.”
“We’re filing this lawsuit with our partners to ensure that remains the case in West Potomac Park,” Tiernan Sittenfeld, President and CEO for the National Parks Conservation Association, said in a statement, highlighting what critics of the project deem “invaluable green space” enjoyed by many.
Rebecca Miller, Executive Director of the DC Preservation League (DCPL), expressed similar sentiments, stating that DCPL joined the coalition to “ensure that this historically significant cultural landscape remains a public treasure for everyday citizens, protecting it from being unlawfully transformed into an unrecognizable island that does not fulfill its intended purpose.”
Other members of the lawsuit provided similar statements, contending that the park should remain as is.
President Donald Trump originally issued an executive order on January 18, 2021 on building the National Garden of American Heroes.
“The National Garden will be built to reflect the awesome splendor of our country’s timeless exceptionalism,” the order reads in part, making it clear that the garden is in response to the “reckless attempt to erase our heroes, values, and entire way of life” by the radical left.
It contains a long list of statues of the greats to be featured in the garden — from Samuel Adams to Ronald Reagan:
Section 3(c)(i) of Executive Order 13934 is amended to read as follows: “The National Garden should be composed of statues, including statues of Ansel Adams, John Adams, Samuel Adams, Muhammad Ali, Luis Walter Alvarez, Susan B. Anthony, Hannah Arendt, Louis Armstrong, Neil Armstrong, Crispus Attucks, John James Audubon, Lauren Bacall, Clara Barton, Todd Beamer, Alexander Graham Bell, Roy Benavidez, Ingrid Bergman, Irving Berlin, Humphrey Bogart, Daniel Boone, Norman Borlaug, William Bradford, Herb Brooks, Kobe Bryant, William F. Buckley, Jr., Sitting Bull, Frank Capra, Andrew Carnegie, Charles Carroll, John Carroll, George Washington Carver, Johnny Cash, Joshua Chamberlain, Whittaker Chambers, Johnny “Appleseed” Chapman, Ray Charles, Julia Child, Gordon Chung-Hoon, William Clark, Henry Clay, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Roberto Clemente, Grover Cleveland, Red Cloud, William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, Nat King Cole, Samuel Colt, Christopher Columbus, Calvin Coolidge, James Fenimore Cooper, Davy Crockett, Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., Miles Davis, Dorothy Day, Joseph H. De Castro, Emily Dickinson, Walt Disney, William “Wild Bill” Donovan, Jimmy Doolittle, Desmond Doss, Frederick Douglass, Herbert Henry Dow, Katharine Drexel, Peter Drucker, Amelia Earhart, Thomas Edison, Jonathan Edwards, Albert Einstein, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Duke Ellington, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Medgar Evers, David Farragut, the Marquis de La Fayette, Mary Fields, Henry Ford, George Fox, Aretha Franklin, Benjamin Franklin, Milton Friedman, Robert Frost, Gabby Gabreski, Bernardo de Gálvez, Lou Gehrig, Theodor Seuss Geisel, Cass Gilbert, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Glenn, Barry Goldwater, Samuel Gompers, Alexander Goode, Carl Gorman, Billy Graham, Ulysses S. Grant, Nellie Gray, Nathanael Greene, Woody Guthrie, Nathan Hale, William Frederick “Bull” Halsey, Jr., Alexander Hamilton, Ira Hayes, Hans Christian Heg, Ernest Hemingway, Patrick Henry, Charlton Heston, Alfred Hitchcock, Billie Holiday, Bob Hope, Johns Hopkins, Grace Hopper, Sam Houston, Whitney Houston, Julia Ward Howe, Edwin Hubble, Daniel Inouye, Andrew Jackson, Robert H. Jackson, Mary Jackson, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, Steve Jobs, Katherine Johnson, Barbara Jordan, Chief Joseph, Elia Kazan, Helen Keller, John F. Kennedy, Francis Scott Key, Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King, Jr., Russell Kirk, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Henry Knox, Tadeusz Kościuszko, Harper Lee, Pierre Charles L’Enfant, Meriwether Lewis, Abraham Lincoln, Vince Lombardi, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Clare Boothe Luce, Douglas MacArthur, Dolley Madison, James Madison, George Marshall, Thurgood Marshall, William Mayo, Christa McAuliffe, William McKinley, Louise McManus, Herman Melville, Thomas Merton, George P. Mitchell, Maria Mitchell, William “Billy” Mitchell, Samuel Morse, Lucretia Mott, John Muir, Audie Murphy, Edward Murrow, John Neumann, Annie Oakley, Jesse Owens, Rosa Parks, George S. Patton, Jr., Charles Willson Peale, William Penn, Oliver Hazard Perry, John J. Pershing, Edgar Allan Poe, Clark Poling, John Russell Pope, Elvis Presley, Jeannette Rankin, Ronald Reagan, Walter Reed, William Rehnquist, Paul Revere, Henry Hobson Richardson, Hyman Rickover, Sally Ride, Matthew Ridgway, Jackie Robinson, Norman Rockwell, Caesar Rodney, Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Betsy Ross, Babe Ruth, Sacagawea, Jonas Salk, John Singer Sargent, Antonin Scalia, Norman Schwarzkopf, Junípero Serra, Elizabeth Ann Seton, Robert Gould Shaw, Fulton Sheen, Alan Shepard, Frank Sinatra, Margaret Chase Smith, Bessie Smith, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Jimmy Stewart, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Gilbert Stuart, Anne Sullivan, William Howard Taft, Maria Tallchief, Maxwell Taylor, Tecumseh, Kateri Tekakwitha, Shirley Temple, Nikola Tesla, Jefferson Thomas, Henry David Thoreau, Jim Thorpe, Augustus Tolton, Alex Trebek, Harry S. Truman, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Dorothy Vaughan, C. T. Vivian, John von Neumann, Thomas Ustick Walter, Sam Walton, Booker T. Washington, George Washington, John Washington, John Wayne, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Phillis Wheatley, Walt Whitman, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Roger Williams, John Winthrop, Frank Lloyd Wright, Orville Wright, Wilbur Wright, Alvin C. York, Cy Young, and Lorenzo de Zavala.”
Trump reaffirmed his plans on Truth Social in May, writing: “I’m proud to announce the site of the NATIONAL GARDEN OF AMERICAN HEROES.”
“This magnificent exhibition of statues will be located in West Potomac Park, which we are transforming into one of the World’s most beautiful public spaces,” he said. “Right now, it is a totally BARREN field of Prime Waterfront Real Estate along our Mighty Potomac River.”
It comes as the Trump administration continues to work on thoroughly revamping D.C., reducing crime, restoring fountains and monuments, and more, with the Reflecting Pool grabbing some of the most attention.
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