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Monday, October 12, 2026
ANNALS OF TRUMPI$TAN: 'Furious’ judge halts tree removal, demands answers on Trump’s D.C. golf plan. (Rick Maese, WaPo, October 12, 2026)
From The Washington Post:
Furious’ judge halts tree removal, demands answers on Trump’s D.C. golf plan
The judge lambasted the Trump administration for ignoring her repeated pleas not to work on the historic East Potomac course: “There’s no excuse for this.”
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A crew cuts down trees at East Potomac Golf Links on Saturday. (Nathan Howard/AP Photo/Nathan Howard)
A “furious” federal judge excoriated the Trump administration Monday morning for cutting down hundreds of trees at East Potomac Golf Links, the historic course eyed for redevelopment by President DReyes says she had been reluctant to issue a temporary restraining order in the case. But, she added, “I have no faith that the government isn’t going to cut them down unless there’s an order in place not to do so.”Government lawyers told U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes at an emergency hearing that approximately 430 trees were removed Saturday and that another 299 are still targeted for removal. Reyes ordered the government to stop cutting down trees until at least 2 p.m. Tuesday, by when she hopes to hear testimony from another administration official involved in the tree removal.
Violating her order “by two seconds” would prompt contempt proceedings, the judge said.
“I am thoroughly unamused right now,” Reyes said as the hearing began. “I do not know how I could have made it any plainer. I did not want what happened to happen.”
At one point, Justice Department attorney Marissa Ann Piropato told Reyes that government lawyers “did our best” to keep the court apprised of any construction work at the course.
“No, you did not do your best,” Reyes responded, her voice rising. “You did your absolute worst.”
The hearing followed an emergency request filed late Sunday by preservationists seeking to stop the National Park Service fromremoving additional trees at the historic public golf course. The D.C. Preservation League and two golfers allege that the administration is racing ahead with irreversible work while avoiding the environmental and historic-preservation reviews required for the president’s proposed transformation of East Potomac into a championship-level course.
Reyes said she had repeatedly trusted government lawyers’ assurances that the court and plaintiffs would receive notice before major or irreversible work began. The government filed its notice at 4:55 p.m. Friday before a holiday weekend, roughly 12 hours before crews began cutting.
“I trusted you all not to do precisely what you have done,” Reyes said. “On what universe did anyone in your offices think that that was acceptable?”
Piropato acknowledged that government lawyers had learned as early as last Wednesday that the tree-cutting operation could begin Saturday. She said that attorneys were still gathering details and that there had been no “conscious decision” to withhold notice.
“Ignorance is not an excuse here,” Reyes responded. “There’s no excuse for this.”
The judge noted that she had said at an earlier hearing that she did not want even 10 trees removed without notice. She said she had resisted the plaintiffs’ previous requests for a formal restraining order because she trusted the government to honor the expectations she had repeatedly laid out.
“More than just being upset and furious right now, I’m just beyond disappointed in the government,” Reyes said. “I have done everything humanly possible to give the government the benefit of the doubt in this case.”
Golfers pass trees cut down by the National Park Service at East Potomac on Saturday. (Nathan Howard/AP)
The judge pressed the government to explain why a tree-cutting plan that had sat dormant for years suddenly had to be executed over a holiday weekend. (Nathan Howard/AP)
The government has maintained that the tree cutting is unrelated to the proposed overhaul of the historic golf course, while the plaintiffs accuse the administration of disingenuously treating early steps toward that larger project as stand-alone maintenance.
Reyes pressed the government to explain why a tree-cutting plan that had sat dormant for years suddenly had to be executed over a holiday weekend. Piropato initially said she did not know. National Mall and Memorial Parks Superintendent Kevin Griess told the court that the Park Service had only recently obtained the money and personnel needed to carry out a tree-removal program outlined in a 2019 cultural-landscape report. He said the workforce became available through a Park Service staffing surge connected to the nation’s 250th anniversary.
Griess said he submitted a tree-management plan to the National Park Service’s director Oct. 5 and received approval the next day. He said he did not know how much the tree cutting is costing NPS. Unlike in previous rounds of tree removal, he said, none of those cut down Saturday had been identified as hazardous or as posing a safety risk.
“This plan isn’t just about safety,” Griess testified. “It’s about the restoration of the park to its original state as a links golf course.”
Griess also testified that he has not seen or been briefed on any internal plan for Trump’s proposed redevelopment of the golf course. He said everything he knows about that proposal has come from social media.
The judge expressed concern about how quickly the government moved, given that two NPS officials testified Monday there was no urgency to remove the trees. She ordered Gregory Wischer, deputy chief of staff at the Interior Department, and National Park Service Director Jessica Bowron to testify when the hearing resumes Oct. 19 about why the cutting began Saturday and when the plan was first conceived. The judge said she was trying to determine whether the government had made “multiple misrepresentations” about the timing, notice and nature of the work — not merely whether a specific order had been violated.
he judge expressed concern about how quickly the government moved, given that two NPS officials testified Monday there was no urgency to remove the trees. She ordered Gregory Wischer, deputy chief of staff at the Interior Department, and National Park Service Director Jessica Bowron to testify when the hearing resumes Oct. 19 about why the cutting began Saturday and when the plan was first conceived. The judge said she was trying to determine whether the government had made “multiple misrepresentations” about the timing, notice and nature of the work — not merely whether a specific order had been violated.
An Interior Department spokesperson did not respond directly to questions or address the plaintiffs’ assertions but said in a statement: “NPS recognizes the importance of trees to the park and its visitors. This carefully planned work is part of our required stewardship of the park.”
In filing the request Sunday night, the plaintiffs cast the cutting as part of the administration’s broader push to remake the course.“This is a tactic we’ve seen before from the Trump-Vance administration — act quickly to irrevocably alter a cherished national landmark, just to advance another one of President Trump’s pet vanity projects,” said Skye Perryman, president and chief executive of Democracy Forward, which represents the plaintiffs. “We are asking the court to act quickly before further unnecessary damage is done to a jewel of our national park system.”
The number of fallen trees presented in court Monday represents a dramatic expansion of the work the government outlined just a few days earlier.
In a sworn declaration filed Friday, Griess said crews would begin Saturday by removing 169 trees. An additional 90 were expected to follow, and field inspections could bring the eventual total to 529.
The plaintiffs said they intend to follow Sunday’s emergency request with a motion for a preliminary injunction. Their immediate argument is based on the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires federal agencies to evaluate the environmental consequences of major actions before committing resources or making irreversible decisions.
Trump has tapped prominent golf architect Tom Fazio to transform the century-old public facility into a championship-caliber course that the president says could host major tournaments. The administration, however, continues to describe the redesign in court filings as a “potential project” and has not released a final design, cost, funding plan or construction schedule.
The plaintiffs accuse the administration of improperly “segmenting” the East Potomac work — dividing a larger undertaking into smaller projects and evaluating each separately, rather than considering the cumulative effects of the proposed golf course overhaul.
Reyes has previously warned the administration to provide enough notice for the court to act before irreversible work begins, while making clear that she did not intend to become the course’s tree police. “I am not the Lorax. I do not speak for the trees. I am a judge,” she said at a September hearing.
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