Judge Asks Whom to Trust as Lawyers Fib Over Golf Course

More than 400 trees are gone from East Potomac Golf Links, and a federal judge now wants to know whether the lawyers who told her about it were telling the truth. U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes said Friday she is opening a "formal inquiry" into whether government officials and lawyers made misrepresentations to the court and violated ethics rules during the fight over President Trump's plans to renovate the historic public course in Washington, D.C.

Who Has the Power

Reyes said she will run the examination herself, assisted by a special master, a neutral arbiter she hasn't yet appointed. The Justice Department has five days to object. She stressed there has been no finding of wrongdoing, and Al Jazeera reported the inquiry won't establish whether lawyers committed misconduct, only whether their conduct breached professional or ethical obligations.

Her list of questions is long. She'll examine whether a notice about impending tree removals was filed in bad faith. Justice Department lawyers told the court only hours before crews began cutting down hundreds of trees earlier this month. She'll look into whether government lawyers instructed Jessica Bowron, the acting director of the National Park Service, to omit certain information from a declaration, and whether they told Kevin Griess, superintendent of National Mall and Memorial Parks, to include certain information about budgetary resources in another. She'll also probe whether witnesses gave misleading testimony about the extent of plans for closure and renovation.

What They're Calling "Order"

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. sat through more than two hours of questioning. Reyes kept setting his testimony beside Trump's online announcements, stopped the hearing several times, and adjourned to her chambers to check transcripts. Woodward told the court Wednesday that the administration planned to close all of East Potomac Park, including the golf course, a surrounding road and recreation area, by Nov. 15. At one point he counted tree cutting as part of the preparation for closure. Reyes answered, "News flash," and he corrected himself.

Trump had announced it all in a Truth Social post on Oct. 18, saying the Interior Department and golf course architect Tom Fazio "developed a plan to build a World Class Championship Golf Course on the site." The park would close for 15 months starting Nov. 15. On Monday he said again that his administration is "closing the East Potomac Golf Course Site as scheduled on November 15th in order to renovate and rebuild for Competitive (with other such projects!), Safety, Modernization, and Aesthetic reasons."

Meanwhile, officials from Interior, Justice and the National Park Service couldn't confirm any of it when the judge asked. Reyes eventually asked whom she should trust. Wednesday night the Justice Department filed notice that the Park Service would submit a Fazio-designed rendering to the National Capital Planning Commission on Friday, Oct. 30.

Who Gets Crushed

The course has operated since the 1920s. The park includes biking and walking paths. It's a public space, used by ordinary people, and a single announcement from the top set the clock on shutting it down for 15 months.

The case was brought in February by the DC Preservation League and two local golfers. The league argues the redevelopment could violate environmental protections and damage a historically significant public space. Until this month, Reyes had rejected the plaintiffs' motions, saying she trusted government attorneys. The trees came down anyway. After the 400-plus were removed, she extended her injunction against further "irreversible" changes, and earlier in the week issued longer-term relief barring tree cutting while the case continues.

The Court as the Last Brake

Three courtrooms away, Judge Tanya Chutkan heard a challenge to a proposed 250-foot (75-meter) arch. David Super, a Georgetown University Law Center professor, laid out what's at stake: "There was always the assumption that you would try to do things that were legal. What we're seeing here now is that if you think the federal courts can't stop you, you can break the law."

Read that again. The check on this power is a judge who trusted the government's lawyers until the trees were already on the ground, and who now needs a special master to find out what she was told. Fifteen days remain until the planned closure.