Trump golf course judge opens investigation into DOJ after last-minute U-turn - The Independent

Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today.

A federal judge is opening an investigation into whether government lawyers lied to her court or violated ethics rules in a blockbuster lawsuit against Donald Trump’s proposed multi-million dollar, taxpayer-funded renovation plans for a public golf course in Washington, D.C.

The Trump administration has insisted for weeks that there were no imminent plans to close the park despite the president's Truth Social announcements outlining his vision for the project.

The Department of Justice finally admitted in court filings this week that the president’s plans to close East Potomac Park on November 15 are, in fact, in the works.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes repeatedly erupted at government attorneys during a heated court hearing on Friday before finding that Justice Department officials “intentionally” timed the abrupt removal of hundreds of trees to evade judicial review — and may have been misleading the court about plans that have long been in the works.

“The third highest ranking official at the Department of Justice is telling me, telling a federal court, that he cannot say that when the president posted the ‘course will close on November 15,’ what he meant was, ‘the court will close on November 15’?” Reyes asked.

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, the No. 3 official at the Justice Department, said he “cannot opine as to the president’s meaning” and that it “would be improper of me to explain my interpretation.”

The Justice Department also admitted that administration officials have been working for weeks on final plans for the golf course to submit to the National Planning Commission — and never told the judge, including during a tense seven-hour hearing earlier this month.

“I don’t recall the court asking a question as to whether we were wanting to come up with a plan,” Woodward said.

“Are you kidding me right now?” Reyes fired back.

“Am I to understand that for weeks someone has been putting pen to paper on a submission to design the golf course … while this litigation was ongoing, while Department of Justice employees were representing to me that there was no plan?” she said.

The National Park Service is submitting plans on Friday for what the administration is calling a “World Class, championship-level golf course that is capable of hosting major events” — and the park will close November 15, “consistent with the President’s directive,” according to the Justice Department’s latest court filing.

That filing arrived roughly one week after officials testified that there were no such plans.

Last week, Reyes wanted to know whether Trump’s announcements amounted to a “final agency action” or a “preliminary thought.”

Woodward insisted nothing had changed — but then Trump chimed in.

“The United States Department of Interior wants to take a terrible and very unsafe golf course, and make it into a great, safe, and prestigious golf course,” Trump wrote October 19, one day after Woodward’s filing.

“They have an absolute right to do so. It’s as simple as that! The judge on the case is a crazed lunatic whose courthouse tapes will reveal, may be insane?” Trump wrote.

He said his administration doesn’t need any approval and can begin working on the project “IMMEDIATELY.”

“The finished product will be World Class, and bring income and great prestige back to D.C.,” he wrote.

Reyes hauled government officials back to her courtroom that day to press them for information about who, exactly, was responsible for greenlighting the tree removal and other plans for the park, and whether Trump was actually planning to close it down.

“Do I believe the president of the United States, or do I believe you?” she said. “What do I do if I believe President Trump that there is an imminent closure?”

On October 26, Reyes issued a preliminary injunction to stop the removal of any trees at the golf course, stating that 10 days’ notice must be given before any “irreparable modification” is made to the site while a lawsuit filed by the D.C. Preservation League and two golfers remains active.

She determined that, yes, there is a plan to close the park, “even if the implementation date remains in some flux,” and the Justice Department won’t acknowledge the president’s statements without messing up their own defense against the lawsuit.

While the future of a municipal golf course may appear to be a low-stakes courtroom drama, the construction would be the president’s biggest D.C. project yet — and the explosive legal battle surrounding it has sparked yet another massive confrontation between the White House and the judicial branch.

Woodward has also tried to remove Reyes from the case altogether for what he called her “egregious” behavior, “open hostility” and “deep-seated and unequivocal antipathy” towards the administration.

He previously lambasted the judge for her “histrionics” and “misconduct” and demanded that she recuse herself from the case after she unloaded on government officials in a heated court hearing earlier this month.

“Yes, the Court was ‘furious’ and ‘beyond disappointed,’ and said as much” when she reprimanded administration officials for bulldozing hundreds of healthy trees over a holiday weekend, Reyes wrote in her response to Woodward’s request.

“It is easy to weaponize selective quotations to bring a baseless recusal motion. But it is much harder to meet the demanding legal standard against a full record,” she said.

The lawsuit calls on the court to halt the Trump administration's proposal to replace the public park with what the president is calling “one of the Greatest Golf Courses anywhere in the World.”

After abruptly clearing out hundreds of trees with little notice, the administration has done “precisely” what the preservationists feared, Reyes wrote earlier this month.

Tree removal plans moved from “removing only hazardous, dead, dying, or invasive trees to removing hundreds of healthy, non-invasive trees” — and did so without providing any “meaningful” notice to the plaintiffs and the court, Reyes wrote.

Administration officials “raced” to tear down the trees, because the president “demands haste on his redesign, and not because of some newfound zeal to implement a small part” of the master plan, she said.