A federal judge has delivered a sharp setback to President Donald Trump’s plan to remake a century-old public golf course in Washington, extending a court order that bars the administration from cutting down any more trees at East Potomac Golf Course and forcing it to give advance warning before making any other major change to the grounds. The East Potomac Golf Course ruling, handed down on Monday, turns what began as a local fight over a beloved municipal course into a pointed judicial rebuke of how the administration described its own project in court.
Judge Reyes extended an earlier order that had suspended work on the project until at least October 26, converting it into a preliminary injunction that will hold while the underlying lawsuit is litigated. The order, reported by CNN and the Associated Press on October 27, bars the Interior Department from further tree removal and imposes a new notice regime: before it makes any other change that could permanently alter the site, it must tell the plaintiffs in writing 10 days in advance.
The dispute came to a head when workers cut down more than 400 trees with little notice to the people challenging the project. In her new opinion, Reyes said she was forced to act now “because the Government did what it assured all it would not do.” The ruling also found that the government had been taking steps to begin Trump’s vision for a championship-level course while describing the work in court as routine maintenance.
The plaintiffs are the D.C. Preservation League and two golfers, who argue that the work is inflicting irreversible damage on a historic public park. They had asked the court to prevent further tree cutting after 400 trees were felled in a single morning earlier in October. Reyes agreed, and she also rejected the administration’s request that she step aside from the case, after the government questioned her impartiality and accused her of “egregious” behaviour from the bench during an emergency hearing.
East Potomac Golf Course sits in East Potomac Park at Hains Point, where the Potomac and Anacostia rivers meet. Opened more than a century ago, it has long been one of Washington’s most accessible places to play golf: a modest, public course rather than a private club, used by generations of residents for golf, running, wildlife watching and seasonal cherry-blossom viewing.
That character is at the heart of the legal fight. According to reporting on the proposed redesign, the plan would close the course for about 15 months and, as described in coverage of the Washington Post’s reporting, remove Ohio Drive, the scenic road circling Hains Point, along with a grove of cherry trees and a historic miniature golf course. For the plaintiffs, those are not cosmetic changes but the destruction of the features that make the park what it is.
The timeline matters to the judge’s reasoning. On October 18, Trump announced on social media that he would close the course for 15 months starting November 15 and redevelop the 106-year-old park and course, despite the pending court challenge. A day later, he posted that the work would start immediately — statements that sat uneasily alongside what government lawyers had told the court, where the administration had suggested that no long-term plan was settled and that only maintenance was under way.
The preliminary injunction does two things. First, it temporarily bars the government from removing or damaging any additional trees on the East Potomac Golf Course. Second, it requires 10 days’ written notice before any “irreparable modification” to any “forms or features” of the site while the lawsuit is active. In practice, that notice requirement gives the plaintiffs time to return to court before bulldozers or chainsaws can change the landscape again.
Reyes, who was nominated to the bench by former President Joe Biden, framed the decision as a matter of legal process rather than landscaping. “The Court earlier stated, ‘I am not the Lorax. I do not speak for the trees.’ The Court still does not speak for the trees. It speaks only for the rule of law,” she wrote.
The opinion is also notable for how directly it confronts the gap between the president’s public words and the government’s courtroom position. Reyes wrote that she was astonished that the government had asked her “not to believe the sitting President” and to disregard Trump’s statements about his plans. “Rarely, if ever, has the United States Department of Justice urged a federal court not to believe the sitting President,” she wrote. “And yet, here we are.”
The ruling drew its sharpest language from Reyes herself. “This started as a case about golf. That good walk spoiled. But it has become much more,” she wrote. “It now forces the Court to reconcile assertions by President Donald J. Trump with the sworn testimony of multiple government employees and the argument of senior Department of Justice attorneys.”
The administration has not, in the reporting so far, offered a detailed public response to the new injunction beyond its earlier courtroom arguments, and the story was still developing as the opinion was published. The plaintiffs have argued from the start that the work inflicts irreversible damage, a claim the injunction effectively accepts for now, and the ruling sets the stage for an appeals court battle.
On its surface, this is a fight about trees and a golf course. Its significance runs wider because it tests a basic expectation of litigation: that what the government tells a judge can be relied upon. When a court issues an order on the strength of assurances, and the assured-against conduct then happens anyway, the court’s authority is at stake — and the 10-day notice requirement is designed to prevent a repeat.
The case also sits within a broader campaign by Trump to leave a personal imprint on Washington’s historic landscape. Alongside the golf course, the president has pursued a huge new ballroom at the White House, a 250-foot triumphal arch at the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery, and adding his own name to the Kennedy Center. Each project has drawn its own controversy, but the golf course case is the one in which a federal judge has now intervened most directly, halting work and imposing conditions on a project the president has publicly championed.
The immediate next step is likely an appeal. The ruling is a preliminary injunction, not a final judgment, so the underlying lawsuit continues and the government can ask a higher court to lift or narrow the order. That appeal would test Reyes’s reasoning about the government’s assurances and the scope of the notice requirement.
Judge Ana Reyes issued a preliminary injunction barring the Trump administration from removing or damaging more trees at East Potomac Golf Course, and requiring 10 days’ written notice before any other “irreparable modification” to the site while the lawsuit continues.
Reyes said the government cut down more than 400 trees with little notice after assuring the court it would not do so, writing that she had to act “because the Government did what it assured all it would not do.”
The D.C. Preservation League and two golfers challenged the project, arguing that the work inflicts irreversible damage on the historic public park at Hains Point.
Trump announced on October 18 that the 106-year-old course would close for 15 months from November 15 for redevelopment into a championship-level course, then said a day later that work would start immediately. Reporting on the plan says it could remove Ohio Drive, a cherry tree grove and a historic miniature golf course.
The injunction holds while the lawsuit continues, and the ruling sets up an appeals court battle. The administration must give advance notice of major changes, giving the plaintiffs time to challenge them.
Related coverage on US News Pulse: Democrats demand a special counsel to probe Trump ties in the Epstein files; US Iran strike plans reportedly ready within 96 hours of a Trump order; US warns EU that a $3.4B Airbus loan threatens the aircraft trade truce.
Leave a Comment
| Today's Date:
