11 Jun 2025

DOJ Says DJT Can Abolish National Monuments

by Bonnie | | 0

The Department of Justice issued a legal opinion saying Donald Trump has the authority to abolish national monuments established by any of his predecessors.

The opinion was written 27 May 2025 and released today. It reversed a legal opinion from 1938 by Attorney General Homer Cummings under Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt, which constrained Presidential power to eliminate designations by a predecessor. The new opinion allows Trump to wipe out federal protections for millions of acres of land designated as national monuments by preceding Presidents.

National monuments are created by Presidents to recognize a site’s cultural, historical or scientific importance. National parks are created by Congress, usually to protect scenic features or set aside natural preserves.

High on Trump’s target list to abolish are two national monuments set aside by former President Joe Biden on land that is significant to Native American tribes:

Chuckwalla National Monument, more than 624,000 acres south of Joshua Tree National Park
Sattitla Highlands National Monument, 224,000 acres with craters and lava tubes created by the dormant Medicine Lake volcano

Until now, some Presidents shrank the size of previously established national monuments, as Trump did dramatically in his first term in office, but no national monument has been abolished. Trump is eager to unleash natural resource exploitation on lands that have been federally protected.

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