A federal choose has ordered a prime Division of Justice official again into court docket after President Donald Trump posted on his social media account affirming that East Potomac Golf Course will shut Nov. 15 for renovations — straight contradicting repeated assertions from administration officers in a listening to final week.
District Choose Ana Reyes has ordered Affiliate Legal professional Basic Stanley Woodward to make clear whether or not his prior statements to her that there have been no plans to shut the course stay correct.
She additional ordered Woodward’s attendance at a listening to both Friday or Monday the place she is anticipated to press the federal government for extra updates on its compliance along with her injunction barring additional development at East Potomac.
In a sharply worded 70-page ruling, Reyes criticized the Trump administration over its plans for the historic golf course in Washington, D.C., and concluded the administration seemingly violated environmental legal guidelines within the course of.
“Not often, if ever, has the US Division of Justice urged a federal court docket to not imagine the sitting President,” Reyes wrote. “To not imagine him {that a} cupboard secretary has ‘developed’ a federal land challenge. To not imagine him that the secretary’s company will destroy a historic golf course already on the land. To not imagine him that ‘Restoration work’ will start ‘IMMEDIATELY!’ To not imagine him that the course ‘will probably be closed’ for over a 12 months. To not imagine what the President has repeatedly instructed the American public. And but, right here we’re.”
The case started over golf and lengthy walks, Reyes mentioned, however has now morphed into an effort to reconcile sworn statements made by members of the administration with statements made by Trump.
The administration should give “ten enterprise days’ written advance discover earlier than making any irreparable modification to any varieties or options of East Potomac Park, pending the end result of this litigation,” Reyes mentioned.
Golfers drive a cart close to felled bushes after the US President Donald Trump’s administration minimize down greater than 400 bushes at historic East Potomac Golf Hyperlinks, in Washington, DC, US, October 26, 2026.
Eric Lee/Reuters
Hours earlier than the listening to was set to begin, the president had posted on social media that development on East Potomac Golf Course would start instantly, regardless of the administration suggesting to the court docket that it might not.
“If, as DOJ insists, President Trump is flawed, Secretary Burgum can simply say so,” Reyes wrote. “He has not. That mentioned, at this juncture Plaintiffs carry the burden of displaying a closing plan seemingly exists. They’ve performed so. That is confirmed not simply by the President’s and Secretary’s many posts, but additionally by the Authorities’s actions, not the least of which is the removing of a whole bunch of wholesome, non-invasive bushes on no actual discover.”
The tree removing had been scheduled every week earlier, however Reyes concluded that these concerned within the lawsuit had little discover to cease the chopping.
The administration additionally seemingly violated environmental legal guidelines — particularly the Nationwide Environmental Coverage Act — by “segmenting” the environmental impacts of the development, she mentioned.
Trump mentioned his administration will attraction the ruling, insisting he’ll transfer ahead along with his plans to close down the course on Nov. 15 to begin the challenge.
“We’re closing the East Potomac Golf Course Website as scheduled on November fifteenth with a purpose to renovate and rebuild for Aggressive (with different such initiatives!), Security, Modernization, and Aesthetic causes,” Trump wrote on his social media platform in a single day.
He mentioned the choose’s request for updates is “unconstitutional.”
“We imagine this Venture is completely ‘as of proper,’ and that the choose doesn’t have the Constitutional Proper to ‘ask for or obtain notices,’ that are time-consuming, pointless, costly, and unconstitutional. We’ll instantly attraction this resolution,” Trump wrote.
Throughout a gaggle with reporters on Monday night time after his Mississippi rally, Trump additionally mentioned he has a “go-ahead” to work on the renovations and blasted the choose for being an “architectural critic of golf programs.”
“It is not my golf course, it is a public course being in-built Washington D.C. and it has a go-ahead,” Trump mentioned.
He added that the present public course is “extraordinarily harmful to play” as a result of it’s too shut collectively and that he was asking the D.C. Circuit Court docket for “speedy treatment.”
