Biden judge berates Trump DOJ over plan to rebuild rundown D.C. golf course

A Biden-appointed federal judge tore into Trump administration lawyers over a D.C. golf course rebuild on Monday, after already blocking work and refusing to step aside.

U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes pressed government attorneys in a tense hearing over President Trump’s push to overhaul the historic East Potomac Golf Links, a public course on a peninsula between the Potomac River and the Washington Channel. The session ended without a ruling, but not before Reyes challenged the Justice Department’s account of whether a final redesign plan even exists.

NPR reported that the judge framed the clash as a credibility fight between the president’s public statements and the lawyers standing in her courtroom.

“Do I believe the president of the United States or do I believe you?” Reyes asked.

"I have, on the one hand, the president of the United States saying to the American public three times now, I think, in the last two days, there is a final plan to redesign the golf course. Then I have you all telling me and, you know, witnesses saying what they're saying, that there's no final plan. Which is it?"

The fight is not abstract. Trump wants to turn three existing courses into one championship-style layout at a facility he has called old, broken, dilapidated, and of no further use. The White House says the work tracks a 2019 preservation plan. A D.C. preservation group and two individuals sued in February to stop Interior Department and National Park Service renovations, arguing higher tee-time prices would undercut a course meant to stay open to all people.

Tree work triggered the latest court fight

In May, Reyes ordered the administration to give notice before substantial construction, including removal of more than 10 trees. Late on Friday, Oct. 9, just before a holiday weekend, government officials told the court they planned to remove up to 529 trees in phases. The National Park Service confirmed in a filing that more than 500 trees had been marked.

Bulldozers started the next day. Hundreds of trees came down. At an emergency hearing last week, Reyes ordered a 24-hour halt, rejected a routine-maintenance pitch, and said she was beyond disappointed. Days before Monday’s session, she had temporarily blocked the project from moving forward.

Fox News reported that during the emergency hearing she raised her voice at full volume and told government attorneys they had lost credibility after the late Friday notice and Saturday cutting of about 430 trees.

"You've lost credibility!"

Reyes also fumed that plaintiffs and the court got little notice at 4:55 p.m. on a Friday of a holiday weekend that hundreds of trees were about to be chopped down. That pattern of sharp courtroom conduct has already drawn a formal Justice Department misconduct complaint alleging bias, including prior grilling of an attorney about religious beliefs.

Readers tracking similar clashes will recognize the wider pattern, including cases where Judge Boasberg’s rulings against the Trump administration later collapsed on appeal.

White House sought her removal; she stayed on the case

On Friday, the White House moved for Reyes to remove herself, accusing her of bias. She declined. Just the News reported she denied the recusal request in a 13-page opinion and kept control of the Monday hearing, even as the administration argued she was violating basic norms of impartiality.

"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."

That denial left a Biden appointee who has repeatedly collided with Trump initiatives still sitting in judgment of a core presidential priority in the capital. The same dynamic has surfaced elsewhere, including when a Biden judge ruled Congress cannot ban noncitizens from voting in federal elections.

On Sunday, Trump posted detailed plans for the new course and wrote on Truth Social that renovation work did not need court approval. “Work is scheduled to begin IMMEDIATELY!” he said, and labeled Reyes a “crazed lunatic.” The post landed one day after Department of Justice lawyers told the court the plan is not final because the Park Service has not completed its review.

Reyes casts the park as more than a golf facility

Monday’s hearing kept the pressure on. Reyes reminded counsel the site is not a toy course and carries real weight for D.C. residents.

"This is not just some putt-putt course. [The park holds] a deep amount of meaning for the people of the district, and is protected as a historic landmark."

She also made clear she believed her earlier directions had been ignored.

"I do not know how I could have made it any plainer that I did not want what was to happen, to happen. I have given the government every single benefit of the doubt that it would not do precisely what it has done."

Breitbart reported she ordered a halt to further tree removal until at least Oct. 26 and is weighing a longer block while the lawsuit seeking to stop the overhaul continues. At the hearing she rejected the idea that the timing was innocent.

"There is no universe in which all of this just coincidentally happened at the same time."

Plaintiffs say Trump’s championship-course vision goes well beyond the 2019 plan, which, as described in court coverage, calls for removing invasive vegetation that does not contribute to the historic landscape while sparing healthy native species. The administration’s answer is simpler: fix a failing public facility and carry out preservation work already on the books.

Conservative readers have watched this movie before when a Biden-appointed judge tossed a Trump DOJ challenge to New York City sanctuary laws, short-circuiting enforcement from the bench.

After a marathon session, one order got walked back

The Monday proceeding stretched more than six hours. In its wake, Reyes briefly ordered the Justice Department to refile a brief and identify career attorneys who agreed with it. A Trump administration lawyer called that command untenable. Hours later, she reversed herself.

The Washington Examiner reported her explanation from the bench after further discussion with clerks.

"Having spoken with my clerks and thought about it a little bit more, I am going to withdraw the request that DOJ refile yesterday’s brief and that I get identification as to who signed."

The pullback did not resolve the larger dispute. No final decision issued Monday on the renovation itself. The trees already cut, the notice fight, the recusal denial, and the clash between the president’s public timeline and the Park Service review remain in front of the same judge.

Separate coverage of other benches shows how fast judicial freelancing against Trump policies can spread, including a case where a federal judge signaled class-action expansion for Trump tariff refunds while importers waited.

East Potomac is a century-old public links in the heart of the capital. Trump’s team says it is broken and due for a real rebuild. Reyes has answered with temporary blocks, credibility lectures, and a refusal to leave the case. Taxpayers and lawful residents who just want a usable course are left watching a courtroom referee treat routine park upgrades like a constitutional crisis.

When judges turn executive maintenance of public land into a personal standoff, accountability stops being a two-way street, and voters notice who keeps moving the goalposts.