WASHINGTON POST • June 10, 2025
Trump administration officials have concluded that President Donald Trump has the authority to entirely abolish protected areas set aside as national monuments by past presidents, according to a legal opinion released Tuesday by the Department of Justice. The document, which reverses a legal opinion issued in 1938, could be laying the groundwork for Trump to abolish or dramatically shrink national monuments, which confer federal protections to millions of acres of federal land. “It signals that the president is prepared to do something dramatic and at a scale that we’ve never seen before with respect to national monuments, which encompass many of our most cherished public lands,” said Justin Pidot, a professor at the University of Arizona’s College of Law and a former Biden administration official.