D.C. Preservationists Sue to Halt Trump’s Sculpture ‘Garden of American Heroes’

President Donald Trump’s proposed “National Garden of American Heroes” has hit another setback as a coalition of Washington-era preservation and cultural groups sues to halt its construction.

The lawsuit, filed Monday, argues that the statuary garden—featuring roughly 250 Americans and planned for West Potomac Park—cannot proceed without congressional approval. The filing seeks to halt the project, which is already underway on a tract connected to the National Mall, as statues are commissioned and funding is secured. The sculpture garden was first mentioned by Trump in July 2020, during his first term.

“Congress put clear laws in place to safeguard the National Mall from new construction and to ensure the public has a meaningful voice in decisions about landscapes that belong to them, as space open to all,” Tiernan Sittenfeld, president and CEO for the National Parks Conservation Association, said in a statement, as first reported by the Washington Post. 

Six organizations and a Washington resident filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, naming National Park Service and Interior Department officials as defendants. Trump officials have, expectedly, rebuffed the plaintiffs demands. 

“It is beyond comprehension why anyone would sue over an exhibition that celebrates American greatness by highlighting some of the most pivotal figures in our nation’s history,” Interior Department spokeswoman Katie Martin said in a statement quoted by the Post. She went on to suggest that critics of the project either “hate America” or are “suffering from a severe case” of so-called Trump Derangement Syndrome, a pejorative term used by Trump supporters to dismiss negative reactions to the president as irrational. 

White House officials have previously said the planned garden would comply with “all legal requirements and approvals,” but they have not indicated whether they intend to seek congressional authorization.

Federal officials have allocated millions of dollars to the project through the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, while Congress appropriated $40 million last year to purchase statues. Criticism of the project has focused on the cost and its intended location, West Potomac Park, one of the most strictly regulated federal lands in the District of Columbia. The green sprawl sits along the Potomac River, in the shadow of the Jefferson Memorial and the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial; large portions intercede a designated reserve controlled by the Commemorative Works Act, which suggests any new additions be approved by Congress, in addition to a review by federal planning agencies.

In 2025, the National Endowment for the Humanities launched a grant program for the design and creation of a sculpture garden featuring life-size statues of 250 “great individuals from America’s past”, spanning scientists, athletes, civil rights leaders, and performing artists. An executive order issued during Trump’s first term included a list of approved historical figures, from the Founding Fathers to painter John Singer Sargent, Sacagawea, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as individuals who had died within the past 25 years, such as Kobe Bryant, Whitney Houston, and former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The Commemorative Works Act, however, stipulates that a commemorative project “may not be authorized until after the 25th anniversary of the event, death of the individual, or death of the last surviving member of the group.” 

The preservation coalition have compared the sculpture garden to Trump’s White House ballroom and triumphal arch projects, describing them as costly and frequent targets of litigation. 

“This disregard for legal requirements is part of the same playbook the administration has used to pursue other recent vanity projects,” reads the Monday filing.